Re: CAFE.INT: su'u xekri

[C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK]

My translation of part 1 of Nick's "su'u xekri"  ("Black")

1.
"That's right. And then he said 'Take heed of the mammals'"
Uncertain chuckles among the listeners.
Paul, god-like in a black sleeveless (hm, sexy!) undershirt, said "You
mean, of the mammalian state."
It is late at the bar, and the sky is supremely black, seen from the
windowed building. (Note 1)  Some customers leave. Lizbeth, not leaving,
plays with Paul's wild black hair and grins uncomfortably, not liking the
joke.
Far away, a black chaos of terrible black holes, destroying and creating
with fearful strength and violence. (Note 2). And right here, the same sort
of thing going on.

Liz (with smoky blue eyes) in a grey T-shirt that says "Love is being
strongly attracted to people whether male or female" in black letters. And
I (her hair is not wild) am even more grey. Grey are my shirt, my trousers,
the jersey tied round my midriff. Somebody ? sings "Grey man, in grey clothes,
riding a grey horse" (note 3).  Actually they don't. Properly, GRUS are replaced
by XEKR.

        That's "black" in the bar.

Notes:
1. I can't really make sense of this sentence. I have assumed that "za'a" is
a mistake for "ga'a", as "xekri" has no x2 place. But what is intended by
"cevni carmi co xekri" I don't know.

2. "kalsa" wants a "ka" for its x2, so I'm not sure what to make of this.

3. I can't make anything of "ba'anaita'o" - (mark-nation) board


I am impressed with this piece of writing, while at the same time, I am not
at all sure that it works. It's full of untranslatable things, that I read
and get something from, but I'm not certain it's what Nick means. A narrow
translation would put in all sorts of things that don't quite make sense, and
I've made sense of them in English by being impressionistic.
Examples:
        ".ivusaibo" - the "sai" says there is an strong but unspecified
        emotion attached to the "vu" (far away). [It does not intensify
        the "vu" itself].

        "notcre" for (message-bearing) t-shirt is meaningful only because
        we are familiar with them - cf my inability to understand
        "ba'anaita'o" which is probably just as clear a metaphor.


What I do like very much is the use of a long tanru with interior linkargs
to express a series of contemperaneous or sequential actions:
        .i la lizbet.
                [[[[[na'e go'i]
                   <cadykei {be le xekri tedykerfa be la paul. kalsa be'o}>]
                         se mlifanza]
                                cisma]
                                        no'e zanru]
        le xajmi

"Lizbet
        [[[[[not doing that-ly]
                 <playing with the Paul's-hair chaos>-ly]
                        mildly annoyed-ly]
                                smilingly]
                                        neutrally approved]
        the joke"

This rather nicely reflects the Japanese "-te" or the Mongolian "-ji", and
I wanted it when doing my Dagur translation.

        kolin