Day 4

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!shoulson>]

Here we go again.  I've made a few back-changes, including a gihek in days
one and three for the naming of day and night and land and sea, and some
vocabulary changes (sligu instead of jdari for "firmament", se diklo
instead of canlu for where the waters gather to, both at Nick's
suggestion).  These changes will show up in a later re-post of everything.

Day 4 starts getting hairy with terminators and all.  Hang on:

ni'o
la cevni cu bacru lu .e'o tergusni tu'i le tsani sligu
(new) "god" utters "(command) light-sources assoc.-with-area the
sky-solid-thing.

I think this is fairly straightforward.  {tergusni} seems fine for light
sources, and tu'i also looks like a fitting "preposition."

.iseri'abo fendi fi le'e dinri ce le'e nicte
causally-therefore (something) divides (something) into the-typical daytime
unordered-set-with the-typical night.

The causality is not explicit, but I think it works here; it's often
implied in the Bible by a simple conjunction.

.ije sinxa ce cabysni ce djesni ce nacysni
and (something) are-signs unord-set now-signs unord-set day-signs unord-set
year-signs.

This is freshly changed from something else, and I'm unsure of it.  The
line is something like "and they shall be for signs and seasons and days
and years."  I think we can't really use "days" and such, but actually
"signs for days" is better.  I'm using Nick's idea of using "ce" instead of
"je"; I'm not sure which is better.  I think "cabysni" (using cabna) is
important, since the word implies "specific times"--times of something;
hence cabna, not temci.  Here, too, djedi is preferable to dinri, since
we're not concerned with specifically daylight hours.

.i ke'u.e'o tergusni tu'i le tsani sligu (fe) le terdi li'u
(repeating) (command) light-source of-area the sky-solid-thing (shining on)
the earth"

The text repeats itself, so I figured there should be a "repeating"
discursive here.  The "fe" isn't really necessary, since the tu'i sumti
doesn't disrupt the places.  It might be good to leave it there anyway.

.i zasti
existing-thing

my "And it was so."

.i la cevni cu zbasu le re barda tergusni no'u le barda tergusni poi
turni le'e dinri ku'o jo'u le cmalu tergusni poi turni le'e nicte
ge'u .e loi tarci
"god" makes the two big light-sources, {which-incidentally-are the big
light-source which-restrictively governs the-typical day(light),
mass-unmixed-with the small light-source which-r governs the-typical night,
close-GOI-phrase}, and the-mass-of stars.

I think the no'u captures the meaning well here; no conjunction is used in
the original or in most translations.  Would it be necessary to say {le pa
barda tergusni .... le pa cmalu tergusni}, or does the fact that there are
only two in toto, and I'm describing two, imply that each description
applies to one?  Should the {jo'u} be {joi}?  Lest anyone argue that I
change my mind as to what a "big" light-source is in mid-sentence, bear in
mind that the text does as well, and "le" means that I'm using words to
mean just what I want them to mean.  (This monkey business with "big" leads
to an interesting story in Rabinnic literature.  The story goes that
originally, the sun and moon were the same size.  Then the moon said to
God, "y'know, if we're both the same size, nobody will be able to tell day
from night (hoping to be made bigger, of course).  God, nobody's fool,
said, "You're right," and promptly shrank the moon down to its current,
smaller size (so the first "big" refers to before this story, and then
suddenly one is "small".)  This also leads to some symbolism in later
poems, since it is considered that the moon's punishment will end in
messianic times, so the moon will be as bright as the sun is now, and the
sun will be seven times as bright (doesn't that just continue the
punishment on a higher scale?  I just relate the stories).  End
digression).

.i la cevni cu punji ra? (/le sego'i?/) le tsani sligu semu'i
lenu te gusni lo terdi kei .e lenu turni le'e dinri .e le'e nicte kei
.e lenu fendi fi le gusni ce le manku
"god" places something-recent (the luminaries--x2 place of previous bridi?)
in/at the sky-solid-thing, motivationally-so-that: {the-event-of:
being-light-sources illuminating the earth close} and {the-event-of:
governing the-typical-daytime and the-typical night close} and {the-event:
dividing (something) into the light unord-set the dark.}

This was a biggie.  I'm not sure if {le sego'i} isn't better than {ra}; it
probably is.  I imagine that {.e} is not the best conjunction for {le'e
dinri} and {le'e nicte}; maybe {pi'u}?  And I'm still unsure about {fendi}
here, though it looks harmless, what with the elliptical x1 and all.

.i la cevni cu jinvi loza'i xamgu
"god" opines the-state-of: good.

"And God saw that it was good."  Works for me.

.i vanci .i cerni .i vomoi djedi
Evening.  Morning.  Fourth day.

There.  Now you have it.  I've barely started Day 5 as of now, so you're
up-to-date with me.

BTW, on some old news.  In my Psalm 137 translation, I used a le'avla,
something like "zgitcirkinora" to indicate a kind of musical instrument.
On further perusal of the gismu list, I see that I don't even need a lujvo
le'avla, since a kinor is a stringed intrument (whether lyre or harp or
even violin), and thus falls into the gismu "jgita"=guitar, yielding
"gitkinora" or something.

~mark