toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
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jan Ote
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan Ote »

soweli Elepanto wrote:Is direct speech is not allowed or bad-sounded without "e ni" or "e nimi ni"? But I feel that too much of "e (nimi) ni" make the text too uniform. Dont't it? By the way: What is the difference between "e ni" and "e nimi ni"?
There is no perfect way to distinguish direct and reported speech except using quotes. Common practice is:
jan Ote li toki e ni: jan ike li kama. -- Ote said that enemy was approaching.
jan Ote li toki e ni: "jan ike li kama." -- Ote said: "Enemy is approaching".
But:
jan Ote li toki e nimi ni: "jan ike li kama." -- Ote said these words: "Enemy is approaching". (it suggests that these are his own words).
To make it less uniform you can use some additional expresions in a sentence:
jan Ote li toki tawa jan utala li toki e ni: "jan ike li kama."
jan Ote li open e uta ona li toki e ni: "jan ike li kama."
Since it's an old legend, 'a tale of bygone years', some parallelisms are more natural than they would be in a modern story.
soweli Elepanto wrote:What is a difference between "tenpo monsi" and "tenpo pini"?
I'm not an expert, but never seen 'tenpo monsi' before. The expression 'tenpo pini' means "past time"; the past.
http://bknight0.myweb.uga.edu/toki/lesson/lesson17.html
It comes from:
pini
  n end, tip
  mod completed, finished, past, done, ago
  vt finish, close, end, turn off
while 'monsi' means 'back, rear end, butt, behind'. Using 'tenpo pini' is using a term meaning 'time finished, completed'. It's finished, then it is [in] the past. Using 'tenpo monsi' means using a specific metaphor: a past time, a time finished is behind us. But in some cultures this is the future that is behind us (that's why we cannot see it). And the past is in front of use (that's why we can see it).
janKipo
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by janKipo »

soweli Elepanto wrote:
soweli Elepanto wrote:ona li lukin e jan pi sona mute li toki:
janKipo wrote:ona li lukin e jan pi sona mute li toki {e nimi ni}: (aesthetics)
Is direct speech is not allowed or bad-sounded without "e ni" or "e nimi ni"? But I feel that too much of "e (nimi) ni" make the text too uniform. Doesn't it? By the way: What is the difference between "e ni" and "e nimi ni"?
Actually, these items are partly important only in spoken tp, to distinguish direct from indirect quotations, and clarify the resulting pronoun shifts. In writing, dropping the 'nimi' is certainly OK and probably the 'ni' too (although the grammar looks odd). 'ni' alone for indirect quotes, 'nimi ni' for direct.
soweli Elepanto wrote:jan mi o, pana e soweli tawa ante tawa mi!
janKipo wrote:Almost certainly too complex, but I am not sure how to do exchanges ("I give you and you give me") I think 'esun' might be handy here but I don't know how it works exactly. 'o pana e soweli ante tawa mi. o weka e soweli mi' is about as good as I can see at the moment. Back to you for better ideas.
I'd explain, that "exchange", moreover "esun = market, shopping etc." are not appropriate here. The prince just ordered his soldiers give him another horse.
Just more of the misreading of 'tawa' as a preposition. 'esun' seems to be about exchanges and places and times for them; the details are yet to be devloped.

I have questions to expert tokiponists: What is a difference between "tenpo monsi" and "tenpo pini"?
Is "tenpo monsi mute" appropriate at all for "long ago" ?
I don't qualify, but I'll put in my two cents anyhow. 1) So far as I can find, no one has used 'tenpo monsi' before, so 'tenpo pini' has gotten entrenched as an idiom. 2) 'tenpo monsi' spatializes time, which I don't think is the tp line, which appears to be more about processes or cycles coming and going (just a general Daoist guess). There is also the question about orientation, even if we spatialize time: is the past behind us as we move toward the future (the Western tradition, I suppose) or is it before us to be viewed while the future sneaks up on us from the rear?
jan-ante
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan-ante »

jan Ote wrote:
Повесть временных лет wrote:И прозвали Олега Вещим, так как были люди язычниками и непросвещенными.
И вернулся Олег в Киев, неся золото, и паволоки, и плоды, и вино, и всякое узорочье. И прозвали Олега Вещим, так как были люди язычниками и непросвещенными.
it is clear from here that this nickname is due to gold and other booty he brought to Kiev (and this is what we were taught at school). this has nothing to deal with ability to predict future (if any)

Wikipedia: Олег Вещий wrote:В летописи приводится его прозвище Вещий, то есть знающий будущее, провидящий будущее.
well, i would say it an argument against wikipedia.
Вещий — происх. от слова «ведающий», родств. слова «вещун», «ведьма» См. напр. Словарь М. Фасмера [1]
some people believe that the Red Square is red, because the wall and the building around are from red bricks.
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jan Josan
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan Josan »

soweli Elepanto wrote:
soweli Elepanto wrote:ona li lukin e jan pi sona mute li toki:
janKipo wrote:ona li lukin e jan pi sona mute li toki {e nimi ni}: (aesthetics)
Is direct speech is not allowed or bad-sounded without "e ni" or "e nimi ni"? But I feel that too much of "e (nimi) ni" make the text too uniform. Dont't it? By the way: What is the difference between "e ni" and "e nimi ni"?
For me, since your next sentence also has "e nimi ni:" I personally don't mind the variation (the king said: prophet tell me this:) vs. (the king said this: prophet tell me this:). I'll let jan Kipo answer this, but when he comments 'aesthetics' I think he's pointing out that officially it's written "toki e [nimi] ni:"
I myself don't use the 'nimi' just "toki e ni:" but the nimi would make it clear that the 'ni' is referring to the specific 'nimi' (direct vs indirect)
soweli Elepanto wrote:jan mi o, pana e soweli tawa ante tawa mi!
...The prince just ordered his soldiers give him another horse.
Oh my gosh, the two "tawa" make this sentence possibly mean so many things. I didn't even consider 'give a different horse to me". I thought you were trying to say "take the animal towards another direction than me" or something, so that's why I suggested "o weka e soweli tan poka mi". Maybe "mi wile e soweli ante".

soweli Elepanto wrote: What is a difference between "tenpo monsi" and "tenpo pini"?
Is "tenpo monsi mute" appropriate at all for "long ago" ?
I've never seen "tempo monsi" used myself, but I think we all knew what you meant so it that way it worked. There was a brief discussion of in the old Yahoo forum around 2007 about using "monsi/sinpin" to somehow mean "before/after". I don't think it was ever used though. Officially it's always collocated "tenpo pini la", "tenpo ni la", and "tenpo kama la" for past present and future, and I have seen "tenpo pini mute la" often used as "a long time ago"
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jan Ote
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan Ote »

jan-ante wrote:it is clear from here that this nickname is due to gold and other booty he brought to Kiev (and this is what we were taught at school). this has nothing to deal with ability to predict future (if any)
Hmm...
Повесть временных лет (Tale of Bygone Years) wrote:И вернулся Олег в Киев, неся золото, и паволоки, и плоды, и вино, и всякое узорочье. И прозвали Олега Вещим, так как были люди язычниками и непросвещенными.
So Oleg returned to Kiev, bearing gold, linen, fruit and wine, along with every sort of adornment. The people called Oleg a "Prophet", but they were pagans and unenlightened.
The Chronicle says that they called him "the Wise", and immediately justifies them "because there were pagans". They were pagans and this is why they could think he's вещун, wieszcz, "a wise man; soothsayer" (see below). If the nickname were from the booty, the chronicler would not give this explanation in the second part of the sentence. Why he says here they were pagans? Because Christians would not and should not consider Oleg a man with some uncommon supernatural wisdom.
http://www.antiochian.org/node/18986 wrote:Olga belonged to the lineage of the Izborsk princes, one of the obscure ancient-Russian princely dynasties. She also had the name “Helga,” which in Russian is pronounced Olga. The feminine name Olga corresponds to the masculine name “Oleg” (Helgi), which means “holy.” Although the pagan understanding of holiness was quite different from the Christian, it also presupposed within a man a particular frame of reference, of chastity and sobriety of mind, and of insight. The fact that people called Oleg the Wise-Seer (“Veschi”) and Olga the Wise (“Mudra”) shows the spiritual significance of names.
These are COMMON translations of Oleg's epithet (used also in translations of the title of Pushkin's poem):
PL: Wieszczy/Mądry
EN: the Prophet/Wise
DE: der Prophet/Weise
HL: de Wijze
FR: le Sage
GR: Σοφος
I have never and nowhere found a translation "Oleg the Wealthy" or similar.
But could be, it's not from вещий="knowing, wise" (Old Church Slavonic: вѣдѣти - to know; Russian: ведать - to know; Sanskrit: 'veda' - knowledge), but from вещи = 'things'. V'ed eto tvoj rodnoj jazyk.

Back to the story:
soweli Elepanto, for "long time ago" I prefer "tenpo suli pini la..." because the old webpage for "time/tenpo" says:
tenpo suli -- long time
tenpo mute -- often, many times
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jan Josan
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan Josan »

jan Ote wrote: for "long time ago" I prefer "tenpo suli pini la..." because the old webpage for "time/tenpo" says:
tenpo suli -- long time
tenpo mute -- often, many times
This is a useful distinction. It brings to light, though, that lili contrasts with both mute and suli, so:
tenpo lili -- soon, moment, briefly
could also possibly mean "seldom/ rarely", which would be confusing
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan-ante »

jan Ote wrote:
So Oleg returned to Kiev, bearing gold, linen, fruit and wine, along with every sort of adornment. The people called Oleg a "Prophet", but they were pagans and unenlightened.
The Chronicle says that they called him "the Wise", and immediately justifies them "because there were pagans". They were pagans and this is why they could think he's вещун, wieszcz, "a wise man; soothsayer" (see below). If the nickname were from the booty, the chronicler would not give this explanation in the second part of the sentence. Why he says here they were pagans? Because Christians would not and should not consider Oleg a man with some uncommon supernatural wisdom.
well, in fact christians do believe in capability of some people to predict future. they attribute this capability to most of their saints (except perhaps the former tsar, who is also a saint now). your version does not explain why the nickname veschiy is mentioned right after the mentioning of gold, wine, and other stuff. as for unenlightened pagans, the christian propaganda attributes many bad things to them, including cruelity greed, cupidity, etc; so the chronicher could mean this point as well. and once againg, they version i told you was taught in soviet schools. i know there are an alternative versions, like a translation of the word "Helgi", in a historical context it is a sound version. but this is not a historical research, this is a translation of a legend to toki pona. so here (in my opinion) my version is preferrable: from the legend Oleg apperas to be niether prophet, nor wise, nor soothsayer. in this legend he lacks all these capabilities. so hwy should we call him "prophet"?
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote: I don't qualify, but I'll put in my two cents anyhow. 1) So far as I can find, no one has used 'tenpo monsi' before, so 'tenpo pini' has gotten entrenched as an idiom. 2) 'tenpo monsi' spatializes time, which I don't think is the tp line, which appears to be more about processes or cycles coming and going (just a general Daoist guess).
and my two rubles, if you dont mind. "tenpo monsi" is a sort of calque from russian (although not a dirct calque):
mnogo let nazad
many summers back
this is on a problem of calques in toki pona
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Re: toki nasa "jan lawa Oliki" pi jan Pusikin.

Post by janKipo »

And not the only one neither.
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