A Bulgarian spring custom

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!shoulson>]

Nice stuff, Ivan.  I had some bits of trouble with it here and there,
though I understood just about everything.

>la cimast. du le pamoi masti pe le vensa noi jaica cikna binxo faile
>mivmunje

Minor stylistic point:  this use of ellipsized {ke'a} at the beginning of
relative clauses is all well and good, but the {jai} conversion can be
confusing, especially here where it's not necessary.  I think I'd have had
an easier time with {le vensa noi le mivmunje cu cikna binxo ca ke'a} or
even {le vensa noi ca ke'a le mivmunje cu cikna binxo}.

{preblgaria}:  probably a correct le'avla, but not necessarily the
clearest.  I know Nick likes to use 4-rafsi in le'avla, so as to make the
rafsi/borrowing joint as "crunchy" (as he puts it) as possible.  This would
yield something like {prenbulgaria}, or to be really crunchy
{prenrbulgaria}.  The {blg} can occur in a brivla (recall that le'avla are
brivla), but only in a le'avla, since only le'avla can have a vocalic l
between consonants (as it must be here).

>vo'epedi'u se cmene zoiby. MARtenitsa by. noi zo mart. noi valsi la
>cimast. le banblgaria cu te zbasu

At first I though this was ungrammatical, but now I see that it is in fact
grammatical, just real confusing:

the-x1 of-prior-sentence is-named "MARtenitsa" (which-is-inc-such-that
the-word "mart" [which-is-inc-such-that (it) is-a-word meaning that-called
"third-month" (in-lang) lang-Bulgarian] is made)

I don't think you want the word "mart" being made.  Maybe:

vo'epedi'u se cmene zoi .by. MARtenitsa .by. noi srana zo mart. noi valsi la
cimast. le banblgaria ku'o ku'o gi'e te zbasu

This way we have (the-x1 of-prior-sentence) being made, not words.

Ooooh, waitasec.  You mean that the word is *made* from the Bulgarian word
for the third month!  That doesn't *quite* come from your sentence, but
maybe it does with proper filling in of ellipsized places.  Or maybe it
would work better if I would take the time to look up up gismu and discover
that {te zbasu} is building material and not assume that it's thing-made
because I feel like like it.  Yeah, I guess it works fine.  I'll leave this
meaningless commentary in anyway, so you can see the confusion; take it as
you will.

>le'i skari pe le remna skapi
>jo'u ciblu cu sinxa fole kazyka'o ki'uledu'u da poi remna cu se flira
>lo dukse beleka blabi .a leka xunre cu cusku ledu'u da bilma

I think this one's ungrammatical:

the-set-of colors of the human (skin as-well-as blood) are signs (urging)
the quality-of-health because-of the-sentence something[it exists!] that is
human is be-faced by something-excessive in (the-quality-of being-white
and/or the-quality-of being-red) ?!X!X? expresses the sentence:
that-something is ill.

There are too many selbri for the sentence, by my count.  Stuff falls apart
at the ?!X!X? for me.  Note also that you're asserting the existence of a
sick person who is pale and/or flushed (can you be both?), not saying that
if someone is pale/flushed, then he is sick.

~mark