Summary Details
| Query: |
Sum: 8.797 Language identification
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| Author: | Mark Mandel | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Genetic Classification
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| Summary: |
In LINGUIST #8.797 I asked: > An acquaintance of my daughter's writes: > > =================================== > > Identify this language please? > > "Idolem urodo iatu a wi rot > Ukufu kush onuoy nehawuoch > Etia di ukoik ura nakurah > Enadu yoimi nnesar urugem > Eteako ich atak > Ureatu tso oodah > Amia wibo koro yonneie" > > I think I have a pretty good idea of what languages this is *not* (not > a Romance language, not Germanic, not Slavic, not Chinese, Japanese, > Vietnamese...). Also, if it translates to something really corny, > lemme know so I can stop embarrassing myself every time I sing it. I received replies from five people, four of whom offered information. Gregory F. Roberts <robertsg@gusun.georgetown.ed> and Douglas Dee <Douglas.Dee@us.coopers.com> pointed me to a Web site maintained by Nora E. Stevens, www-personal.umich.edu/~nstevens/harukanaru.html , that shows the text and explains it as the reverse of > Tori wa utai odoru melodi, > Chouwa hen no shukufuku. > Harukanaru kioku idaite, > Meguru rasen ni mioyudane. > Katachi o kaete-- > Hadoo o tsutaeru. > Eien no yorokobi wa ima Roberts adds: > They are lyrics from a role playing game called the Final > Fantasy by Squaresoft. [And indeed, that is what the Web site is dedicated to. The main page of the site http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nstevens/fflyrics.html is titled > Welcome to the Opera House > Featuring the lyrics to the sweet melodies > of the Final Fantasy series and it gives lyrics in English, Japanese (Romaji), Portuguese, Italian, French, and Saami, as well as many audio files of music (without words).] Leon A Serafim <serafim@hawaii.edu> also recognized it as "Japanese written in mirror image." The fullest response came from Tomoyuki Kubo <kubo@fukuoka-edu.ac.jp>, who kindly gave me permission to quote this response: > It is the Esenapaj language, > which is the mirror image of Japanese, > with different word boundaries. > > The mirror image of this language is; > > Tori wa utai odoru melodii * > Chou wa hen'you no shukufuku * > Harukanaru kioku idaite > Meguru rasen ni mi o yudane * > Katachi o kaete > Hadoo o tsutaeru > Eien no yorokobi wa ima (Asterisks added.) Apart from punctuation, Kubo's reversal differs from Stevens's (which Kubo did not appear to be aware of) in the starred lines. I am inclined to prefer Kubo's analysis, which I infer is native while Stevens credits several other people for help with her translations. [* Damn and blast Indo-European obligatory pronoun gender! Just because I don't know whether Kubo is male or female, I have to contort my syntax to avoid specifying it.] None of the respondents attempted to translate the text. I took Kubo's version to a Japanese co-worker, who shook her head over it and chuckled. "It isn't really coherent sentences," she said [approximately], "and in some places it's ambiguous. It could be a joke on someone trying to be pompous, but it sounds about as stupid as a lot of Japanese lyrics." Here is my transcription of her translations: The bird sings and dances to the melody. Butterfly blesses the metamorphosis hoarding far memory entrusting the body to a spiraling helix changing shape transmit the wave [or "undulation"] eternal happiness is here Thanks to all who replied! Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark@dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ |
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| LL Issue: | 8.931 | |
| Date Posted: | 26-Jun-1997 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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