Pretty sure I haven't posted this little translation yet, but it's something I have hanging around in my notes.
Emodohaa matanu yofi ya kuala pa odapa ya goja. Esa mainonu roto ya geki ya xipaku lo enosairifu ja xidoki naku.
People-all bornPROG free and equal.same in honor.virtue and fairness. 3S havePROG logic.reason and thought and should-act to each-other using.with spirit club.fraternity.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
I'm not 100% happy with the translation. A lot of the words in this passage have very specific connotations that I simply cannot capture in Reisu. This is translation is the closest I could get. I believe part of the problem is the Reisu words pack a lot more meaning into them than the English ones. The connotations are built into the context instead of the word itself. The is partly because Reisu of course doesn't have the extensive vocabulary of synonyms English does, but I never really wanted it to.
I personally find this passage very troubling (to translate, not the content). There are certain concepts that are so tied up in Western culture that it's hard to untangle them and decide how they would be represented in a different culture. I mean, "free", "dignity", "rights", "endowed", "reason", "conscience", "spirit", "brotherhood"...? It's almost impossible!
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