1. Send tand potom takrem tefye uõnim kalalya, uõnim mongwyf.
2. Send seawim il plevvysta elai renek, he twe esteratwe armmandy; rilua-il twe nrinarem celil hea Hsinnarid, send eldwav hovar endõ.
3. Send euab ouarje eldwa jane: "Mantets! Nittaopra uents, uo ad õ potemaht flehhtyzmats." Send nittaopra eldwav uen to mimmivua uo nerik to cicya.
4. Send eldwav ebra: "Mantets! Tesa-ilz lirifel-jo hadhhamats ta mehuen aid kempa ar Erahenahil, send rõ tyr aittearmats, ta vera listsõ hyny il takrem ro ssosyarem.
Click HERE for a RealAudio reading of verses 3 and 4 in Teonaht.
5. Send Le Hrel elo hsommante sa lõ kerem il tesa liriffel-jo hadhhama-uarrel ihhain le plevvysta.
6. Send Le Hrel elo ebra, "Keyts, il plevvysta somad, uo uõnim kalalya twavhha; aibba estwa mippa: to vokraikarem, send vawem dihhai twav kare deytwav dal ai sebrarem esai lis.
7. "Hsobmmantets; send twe kalalya vilvviglats ta vera pre-twav twe mongav rin euab ouarjo."
8. Le Hrel ad hyny il takrem elo toaaiba sossya, send il tesa eldwa beg hadha.
9. Evvaiba Bavel li'aittear ilid lirifel, uanner Le Hrel il uõm kalalya ilid potom takrem elo vilvvigla, send il plevvystan eldwa hovvandy sossyab.
Verse 1: (skip to translation)
Send, "and." Teonaht has three forms for the conjunction "and." Send begins a clause; uo unites two items or clauses, and -jo unites two items postpositionally.
tand potom takrem, lit. "from all of earth." One way of expressing alienable possession is to use a preposition with the copula--pom in the present tense: "one language is with the earth." The use of tand "from") puts it in the past tense--a useful device when the copula is hidden.
potom, "all (of)." The final "m" (from õm) indicates that the following is a partitive genitive, in this case, "of Earth."
tefye, "only."
uõnim, "one (of)." The word for "one" in Teonaht is uõn, but before an object it takes the partitive genitive suffix -m/-im. Sometimes you will see uõm.
kalalya, "language," a part of this is cognate with Gr. lalia. The other word for "language" is mongav, which is often used to mean language use, as opposed to a foreign language or a specific language. Mongwyf means a "system of language," or a grammar.
Translation: And with/from all-of earth only one language, one grammar.
Verse 2: (skip to translation)
seawim, "luck," "fortune."
il plevvysta, "the people." The definite article is in the objective case; being object initial, Teonaht starts out here with the object. plevvysta means a body of people, a culture. The word for "people" in general, "persons," is imralin, "souls."
elai renek, "PAST-tense it favor." Renekrem means to bestow favor upon. The ai is the third person neuter pronoun with the preterite prefix attached to it. So: "luck the people did it favor," i.e., "it happened that the people..."
he, "during."
twe, "their."
esteratwe, "journey"; from vi. steratwarem, "wander," a compound with atwarem, "walk."
armmandy, deictic adverb from arman, "east": "from the east." rilua-il, "plain" + indef. art.
celil, prep. + def. obj. art: "in the."
hea, "land," "country."
Hsinnarid, Hsinnar + gen. suffix: "of Shinar."
eldwav, a variation on eltwav, the third person plural pronoun "they" with preterite prefix: "did they."
hovar, static adverb "there."
endõ, from endõrem, "dwell."
Translation: And luck favored the people during their journey from the east; a plain their finding in the land of Shinar and did-they there dwell.
Verse 3: (skip to translation)
euab ouarje, "(from) one to the other." The postpositional -e ("to") becomes -je in analogy with postpositional -jo ("and").
eldwa jane, PAST-they speak, i.e., "they spoke." The "v" of the conjoined twav is omitted before a word beginning with a consonant, and kept before a word beginning with a vowel.
Mantets! from manterem, "come"; the -ts ending is a contracted form of tsõ, inclusive "we"), used here to express the first person plural imperative: "Let us come/go!"
nittaopra uents, "bricks let us take." Taopra is singular; you make the common plural by prefixing ni(t)-. Uents, 1st pers. pl. imperative, from uenrem, "take."
Uo ad õ potemaht flehhtyzmats. "And them thoroughly let us burn." Again: the object pronoun comes first in Teonaht. The most common way to turn an adjective into an adverb is to preface it with the preposition õ, a variation of õm, "of": so potemaht, "complete," becomes õ potemaht, "completely," "thoroughly." Flehtys means "fiery"; the verb is formed from the adjective + suffix -marem, "to make"; i.e., flehtyzmarem, "to make fiery," "to burn." Another word for "fiery" is lehtdel, "in a state of fire," but lehtdelmarem "to put in a state of fire" means to "set on fire."
eldwav uen, PAST-they take, i.e., "they took";
to mimmivua, "for stones." Mivua, "stone," is preceded by a less common plural prefix, mim-, related to mim "some."
uo nerik to cicyan, "and mud for mortar."
Translation: And one to the other spoke: "Come! Bricks let us take and them thoroughly burn;" and bricks they took for stones and mud for mortar.
Verse 4: (skip to translation)
eldwav ebra, "and they said." Ebrarem differs from janerem in almost the same way that "say" differs from "speak" in English.
tesa-ilz lirifel-jo, "a city and tower." The indefinite article is the same as the definite, except that it follows instead of precedes the noun. The "z" at the end indicates that it doesn't attach to lirifel, which doesn't need an indefinite article in this construction.
hadhamats, first person plural imperative of hadhamarem, "make," "build": "let us build."
ta, "such that," "so that"; a causal particle.
mehuen aid kempa, lit. "arrives its head," from mehuenrem, vi., "arrive." After the causal particle (and in any subordinate clause), syntax is reversed and the verb precedes the subject: "so that its top reaches or arrives"
ar Erahenahil, "at Heaven."
Send rõ tyr aittearmats, lit: "And us also let us name," i.e., "let us also name ourselves."
ta vera, "so that not."
listsõ...ro sosyarem, lit. "get we... our scattering"; lisned means "to be given," "to get through being given," and is almost exclusively used in the passive construction with the gerund/infinitive: "to get our scattering" = "to be scattered."
hyny il takrem, "throughout the earth."
Translation: And they said: "Come! A city and tower let us build so that its head reaches to Heaven. And ourselves let us name, so that we get not throughout the earth our scattering."
Verse 5: (skip to translation)
Le Hrel elo hsommante, "the Lord He descended" As in English, hrel can have both a secular and a divine meaning. Yrlo means "God." To get the sense of the preterite the pronoun is used superfluously with a proper noun.
sa lõ kerem il tesa liriffel-jo , "for his seeing the city and tower." Sa is another causal particle used with the infinitive/gerund that roughly means "in order to."
hadhama-uarrel ihhain le plevvysta. Lit: make-PAST which the people"; i.e. "which the people had made."Hadhama-uarrel puts the completive preterite particle uarrel + dwa (corresponding to our pluperfect) at the end of the verb here because the relative clause requires a reversal of syntax. Ihhain is your relative object pronoun "which," followed by the subject of the clause, le plevvysta, "the people."
Translation: And the Lord descended for his seeing (in order to see) the city and tower which the people had made.
Verse 6: (skip to translation)
Send Le Hrel elo ebra, "and the Lord he said"
Keyts!, "Let us see!" From kerem, "to watch." Kened means to see passively, but God never uses the non-volitional.
Il plevvysta somad, "the people gather." This is an example of the Middle Voice in Teonaht, where the -d/-id ending indicates a kind of passive (from somarem, "to gather"; soma + id). It's not entirely passive, sort of like "the meat cooks," but it takes the object article in front of it.
uo uõnim kalalya twavhha, "and one language they have." twavhha, "they + ha from harem, "possess," "own," "acquire." This verb differs from aned, "have because its a part of you," in being alienable and volitonal instead of inalienable and non-volitional. It also differs from the form of possession used in Verse One in that it is something the people want to own, instead of having acquired indifferently (alienable possession expressed by the preposition + possessor).
Aibba estwa mippa, "this they will begin to be." Aibba is the demonstrative deictic pronoun, indicating closeness to the speaker; estwa is the pronoun twav this time with the futuric particle es- prefixed; mippa is the copulative parem with the inceptive particle prefixed. Pa, which doesn't conjugate, is used in just such circumstances where the copula needs to be prefixed. Otherwise, the conjugated forms would be needed: estwa uan, "they will be." (This could also just be estwa, FUT-they [be], in accordance with the Teonaht penchant for zero-copula, but the uan here is needed for emphasis.)
to vokraikarem, "unstoppable." This is the potentive gerundial phrase, used in Teonaht to express the concept that we do with the suffix -able, and it comprises the preposition to, "for," with the infinitive gerund, lit. "for non-stopping." The vo in front of kraikarem negates it. You could also say to vera kraikarem, "not stoppable."
send vawem dihhai twav kare deytwav dal ai sebrarem esai lis. "And nothing will be prevented that they imagine they can do." Vawem, from vo + ywem, "no thing." Alright, this is a doozy. Teonaht has a baroque way of expressing proper and improper and other relative clauses, basically with a mirroring of syntax, but there is a lot of leeway. But what makes things difficult is that the subject is put first, for emphasis. At times like these, I really regret that T. doesn't just have one simple relative pronoun. The main clause surrounds the subordinant clause: Vawem ... ai sebrarem esai lis, "nothing its containing will it get," with the Teonaht passive construction lisned + gerund, meaning: "Nothing will be contained/prevented." The subordinant clause (which contains another subordinant clause) follows the subject vawem: dihhai twav kare deytwav dal, lit. "of which they think do they can," meaning "what they think they can do." Mirrored syntax, verbs in the middle. Dihhain looks like a simple relative pronoun, but what it's doing here is introducing a "collective genitive noun clause," because it follows vawem, "nothing," a number word. Hai (of dihhai) means "the thing in question" and is usually used as a replacement for the subject or object pronoun in subordinant clauses (i.e., il beto nelry ke ravvõel ihhai il gwenda, "the boy I saw loved-who the girl"); the use of dihhai in the Babel text introduces (rather than is contained in) the subordinant clause. Here is where Teonaht sort of takes over and I stand by and watch.
Translation: And the Lord said: "See! The people are gathered, and one language they possess. This they will begin to be: unstoppable, and nothing of which they imagine they can do will be prevented."
Hsobmmantets, "let us descend" (from hsob + manterem, "come."
send twe kalalya vilvviglats, "and their language let us confuse." Vilvvigla comes from pejorating particle vil + viglarem, "mix."
ta vera pre-twav twe mongav euab ouarjo, "such that not know they their language one from the other." Ta is a preposition meaning "with the result that," and it introduces a subordinant clause which has mirror-image syntax. Rin, a preposition meaning "concerning." Mongav is used, I suppose, for variation meaning "speech."
Translation: Let us descend, and their language confuse, so that know they not their speech one from the other.
toaaiba, "for this." This word and other words like it (evvaiba, pommaiba) are made from prepositions combined with aiba, "this," to mean "therefore," "thus," "because," and so forth.
hyny il takrem, "across, throughout the earth."
eldwa beg hadha, "they stopped building." Beg is the cessative modal meaning "to leave off, to stop."
Translation: The Lord them throughout the earth did he thereby scatter, and the tower they stopped building.
Evvaiba, "therefore."
Bavel li'aittear ilid lirifel, "Babel the name of the tower (is)."
uanner, "because."
hovvandy, "from there."
sossyab, middle voice, from sosyarem. Translation: Therefore Babel (is) the name of the tower, because the Lord the one language of all the earth did he confuse, and the people scattered from there.
Questions or comments are welcome: scaves@frontiernet.net
I've shamelessly, and probably illegally, borrowed from the Aquarian Tarot Deck, here--one I recommend for its gorgeous images. Too busy to paint my own tower, but will if pressed.