Postby jan Lopata » Sat Feb 29, 2020 1:52 am
jan Kipo o, toki!
Thanks for the feedback.
I'm loathe to hijack jan Kaja's thread, but since you've gone to the effort, let's see if we can get this straight.
I'm sure I have got the construction wrong in places, so much so perhaps that I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say, which in turn means (I think) that you have miscorrected it.
First up, thank you for clearing up the difference between 'kama lon' and 'kama tan' for me (I think). If I have this right then, mi kama lon ma Nusilan li kama tan ma Alan. (I hope I got that right - I live in New Zealand, but was born in Northern Ireland - I guess the 'tan' could use a 'tenpo...' clause there for greater clarity.) And is it 'kama lon' or just 'li lon', or I suppose just 'lon' with 'mi'?
ma Nusilan li nimi ante e ma Atelola ==> ma Nusilan li nimi ante pi ma Atelowa.
I struggled with which particle was appropriate, here. I intended to say, 'New Zealand is also called Aotearoa'. Given that, is the construction still wrong? I suspect perhaps I should have left out the second 'ma'.
I read your 'pi' version as 'New Zealand is another name for Aotearoa' - which, while essentially equivalent, is not quite the same thing. I guess though, that if I'm reading your tp correctly, I should have said 'Atelowa li nimi ante pi Nusilan'? I did consider that, but it kind of telegraphs the punchline, as it were. Sometimes language rules make that unavoidable, I guess.
'Atelowa' is better, thanks, but definitely without the 'jo' - 'Ao' is a diphthong like 'ow', not 'ayo' (except in that Split Enz song, where the 'yo' is inserted for the sake of musicality).
ona li nimi e ni tawa jan tenpo wan pi ma Nusilan.
Yes, first people, thank you for the correction there.
What I intended was 'It (New Zealand) is named this (Aotearoa) by the first people of New Zealand'. Again, I struggled with the particles here, so I'm not at all surprised that it doesn't make proper sense in tp.
jan tenpo wan pi ma Atelola-Nusilan li nimi e jan Mali.
Here I intended, 'The first people of Aotearoa-New Zealand are called Maori'.
Again, I considered the obviously correct construction you give, but I wanted to say 'they are called', rather than just saying 'they are'. Can you suggest a correct construction that retains the sense of naming? That may just be a mindset thing that I need to let go. Again, definitely 'Mali' not 'Majoli' as 'ao' is a diphthong.
ma Nusilan li jo toki lawa toki tu.
New Zealand has two official languages.
You're clearly right about the missing 'e', of course. Thinking on it now, perhaps 'toki toki lawa' would have been better? Or perhaps 'toki pi toki lawa'. That's assuming I have 'toki lawa' right as 'law'. Is there a better way of saying this?
ona li lon e toki Mali en toki luka Nusilan.
They (the official languages) are Maori and New Zealand Sign Language.
Given that it appears you were unable to instantiate 'ona' as intended because my previous sentence was bad, it's not surprising this one didn't make sense to you. Given the context, is it any better? I considered 'e ni' or 'la' construction to bolt this onto the previous sentence, but thought I was playing it safe by separating it into two. Clearly I missed the mark.
toki Inli li toki lawa toki ala tawa ma Nuslian taso jan ali mute li toki kepeken e toki Inli.
English is not an official language of New Zealand, but most people speak/communicate using English.
Again, I'm not surprised this is a mess. It seems to me that 'toki lawa toki' needs to be fixed and I evidently missed normal construction for just-about-all people with 'jan ali mute'. kepeken = no 'e' duly noted.
toki lawa toki pi ma Nusilan li sitelen kepeken e sitelen toki Inli!
The language law of New Zealand is written in English.
I've used the same 'toki lawa toki' here for 'law of language' as I did above for 'language of law'. Clearly they can't both be right! Perhaps 'toki lawa pi toki pi ma Nusilan'? (Assuming still that 'toki lawa' is correct for 'law'.) I see now that 'li sitelen' is wrong. 'li lon ...' no, I can't figure it out. How does one do passive voice in tp? Help? (I really need to get my hands on a copy of pu.)
I think I could get closer by turning it around, but again I was aiming to have 'toki Inli' as the punchline and putting it up front would rob it of some of that. Perhaps that's a limitation of tp vs. English? I know English is more flexible in its construction than many languages, so that's not meant as a criticism of tp - just an observation.
ni li nasa ala nasa?
Isn't that crazy?
Should I have used 'ona' instead of 'ni'?
OK, so that's what I meant. Let's see if I can make sense of what your version means:
mi jan pi ma Nusilan
I am a person of New Zealand.
Yes, but I did mean to say 'from' or 'in' rather than 'of', so I think the 'lon' version you give earlier is better. I was deliberately trying to avoid the connotation that I was a native of New Zealand (although I am a citizen).
Nusilan li nimi ante pi ma Atelola(?). jan nanpa wan pi ma Ateloloa li nimi e ona. jan ni li Mali.
New Zealand is another name of/for Aotearoa. The first people of New Zealand call it that. These people are Maori.
Yes, you have grasped the deep semantic content, but not the connotations I was aiming for. Again, it might be a mindset thing that I have to let go of.
Nusilan jo e toki lawa tu. ona li toiki Mali li toki Nusilan. toki Nusilan li toki Inli. jan ali poka li toki kepeken ona.
New Zealand has two principal (high/head) languages(?) They are Maori (language) and New Zealand (language). New Zealand language is English. Most people (is 'jan ali poka' how you say that?) speak/communicate using it (English).
Did I read you right?
mi tawa.