Reisu Travel Phrases Part 2

After Monday's post, David recommended I check out The Four Essential Travel Phrases. This site is awesome, so I translated the four phrases into Reisu. Enjoy!

Where is my room?
Vato ono le dei?

Where is the beach?
Lazaha dei?

Where is the bar?
Onapiivija dei?

Don't touch me there!
Kuzuli ei levo/natavo!
-Levo is literally that place, natavo is in that way/manner.

Reisu Travel Phrases

If you ever find yourself in Reixeko (State of Rei) then the following phrases are very useful. If such a place only existed.

O neina Reisu/Egaisu nei?
Do you speak Reisu/English?

Ei neina Reisu tai/aku.
I speak Reisu some/well.

Ei uneina Reisu./Ei uneina Reisuze.
I don't speak Reisu./I don't speak any Reisu.

O lijikua onapihalo xali nei?
Can you recommend a good restaurant?

Vatozeta dei?
Where is the bathroom?

Ei piteinu lo __. O vita sede lo leru?
I'm looking for __. Do you know how to get there? (Lit: Do you know directions to that place?)

Eru geri jei?
How much does this cost?

Don't unplug me

I've become absolutely obsessed with this song. It's so cute! So I translated the chorus.

Don’t unplug me
or just shut me down
Please just love me
with your steel heart
I’d reboot you
If you’d look at me
With those cold eyes
One more time

Literal translation:
Kujulize ei
Don't-NEG-power me
ro xadu yu vua ei
or turn down just me
Bega rulu vua ei
Please love just me
ja muaho feta ono
with heart steel your
Ei zijasi o
I would-refresh you
Ta o zihoki lo ei
If you would-look toward me
ja etarosavo fuxu
with eyes-those cold
yeihago
time-one-more

Translation trying to match the meter:
Kujulize
ro xadu yu ei
Rulu vua ei
ja muaho feta
Zijasi o
Ta o oki ei
ja oki fuxu
yeihago

All human beings...

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.

De yeisa ya to

De yeisa ya to is a type of poem in Reisu. De yeisa ya to translates literally as six times-four plus(and) five. The poem has four lines of six syllables, and then a final line of five syllables. I am not a very practiced poet, so I have not heard of this structure being used for poems in any natlangs. If anyone has before I'd be interested to know.

I wrote an example poem for this, with a gloss. I do not have an actual English poetic translation because I didn't write the English side by side with it, and translating poetry is a talent I don't possess.

Eka esa paku
nata esa muda
ta e ida esa,
ya gida esaze
gida kutu dei?

Eka esa paku
      Let them act.do
nata esa muda
      way they wish.believe
ta e ida esa,
      if it pleases them
ya gida esaze
      and harms nothing.nobody
gida kutu dei?
      harm is.exists where?

Psalm 23 translation

I translated this a while back, but never posted it. Silly me.

I was raised as a Methodist, and though I no longer practice it I still find comfort in Psalm 23.

1. Lord mukatoxiza ei; Ei suragu;
2. E utapi ei foto pa junasa afi; E xeta ei ha xususa jasi;
3. E xako ei fuka xodi; E miki ei pa tagusa aku lo oo eno.
4. Bo ei kixa pa yali hexiga, Ei kuhimo iiya; hai o kixa ha ei; Bato ono - e nima ei.
5. O utapi huzo fu ei ya fu gajisa eino; O hema aka eino ja sima; ata eino fojage.
6. Aku ya livai sitata ei bu fuka eino aa; Ya ei sifuka po okoko fe Lord lo doro.

1. Lord shepherds me; I will-not-want.
2. He makes me lay in pastures green; he leads me to waters refreshing;
3. He gives me life new; He guides me in paths good for name his.
4. But I walk in valley darkest, I do-not-fear harm; because you walk beside me; staff yours - it comforts me.
5. You make table for me and for enemies my; you bless head mine using oil; cup my full-much.
6. Goodness and care will-follow me through life mine all; and I will-live inside house of Lord until old.

I'm about 99% happy with this translation. I would have liked to translate 'okoko fe Lord' as 'okoko Lord-no', but because I chose to not translate the word Lord this sounded awkward. I much prefer using the -no suffix to inserting fe, but it's simply a stylistic difference. The meaning is the same.

This passage also has one of my favorite types of word constructions. I translate the word 'shepherd' as 'mukatoxiza'. This word is composed of thee parts: muka for domesticated animal, especially livestock; toxi for hair found on the body, in this case referring to a sheep's wool; and -za for person who, or thing that, in this case 'person who tends'.

Babel text

The Babel text in Reisu. Natlang translations here.

1. Lona aa neinala isu a kataru ya ootai. 2. Va esa jotola oto, emodosa heitila junasa po Shinar, ya omagila levo. 3. Esa neinala lo enosairifu, "Daxi, eka eisa leika koposa, ya kusi batei esa." Esa mainola dorixusu lo kopo, ya savi lo suko. 4. Esa neinala katave, "Daxi, eka eisa leika diko ya onapiru yuba evo vuti lo kaisa; ya eka eisa kiki einosarifu, ro eisa mitotilari re lona aa." 5. Bo Lord daxila yu la oki dikoru ya onapiru yuba, emodorusa leikala. 6. Lord neinala, "Ta emodorusa kuala a, ya esa maino isa a; esa lipaku aahe katave. 7. Daxi, eka eisa yata yu, ya juado isa esano, mo esa muzozo enosairifu." 8. Mo Lord totila esa re lona: ya esa kaxila diko. 9. Mo e kikila Babel; hai Lord juadola lona aa isano, ya Lord totila esa re lona aa.

I didn't translate the proper names, mostly because I have not decided if Reisu will have a Terran or non-Terran conworld.

Quantifiers

The quantifiers in Reisu are as follows:

Ge	Many, much	Tai	Few, little
Go	More	Te	Fewer, less
Ga	Most	Ti	Fewest, least

These particles can do a few different things in Reisu. Ge can be added to bring intensity to something. This is considered more than the word 'hata'. For example. 'gura hata' is very hungry, where as 'gurage' is starving. 'Raxi hata' is very bright, where as 'raxige' is blindingly bright.

The same goes the other way for the word 'tai'.
Vexulimanisa maino gigi hata, bo zitisa gigige.
      Songbirds are pretty small, but bugs are tiny.

The other fun way to use quantifiers is to form words like 'better' and 'best'. For example: aku, akugo, akuga (good, better, best). You can also go the other way: aku, akute, akuti (Good, less good, least good).

Ei maino vexumukasa-ge, ya o maino vexumukasa-go, bo esa maino vexumukasa-ga.
      I have many chickens, and you have more chickens, but they have the most chickens.

As you can see in the example, when a quantifier is added to a noun (as opposed to a verb or modifier) the word becomes hyphenated. Vexumuka for 'chicken' becomes vexumukasa-ge for 'many chickens'.

Demonstratives

Demonstrative pronouns in Reisu are formed when you need to express the distance of something. Eru, for this, literally means 'it close to the speaker' or 'it close to me'. It's formed by the third person pronoun, e, and the suffix -ru. You can also attach -ru to other words.

Example (Maino is in parentheses because it's optional):
Jevaru (maino) larelai.
      This flower is beautiful.
Implies that the speaker is holding or next to the flower.

Attaching -ru to a noun is the closest Reisu gets to forming an article. So sometimes -ru is attached simply to call attention to the noun. So the above sentences could also be translated as 'The flower is beautiful'.

To form the concept of 'that' or 'those' we use the suffix -vo. Evo literally means 'it close to the listener'.

Topavosa sukaxi yaivi.
      Those problem won't go away easily.
Implies that the listener is the one with the problems.

This is a third and final declination, -ve. This is for when things are far from the listener and the speaker.

Emodovesa maino gurage!
      Those people are starving!
Implies the people are far from both the listener and the speaker.

In conclusion use -ru, -vo and -ve when you express the proximity of something.

The participle and the passive voice

In English this is a bit ambiguous, so I'll explain a little. The participle is when the subject is being acted upon, and not when it's doing the acting. For example, in 'I ate the bread' ate is past tense. In 'The bread was eaten' eaten is the participle. Obviously the bread isn't doing the eating in the second sentence. Some English verbs aren't so clear on this. For example, 'He was hired' versus 'We hired him, hired is the same. There's no hire'-en'.

Like most forms of verbs in Reisu the participle is formed with a suffix -ri. So 'The bread was eaten' is 'Inoko amulari'.

This suffix is only needed if there is no passive voice clause. 'Ba' forms the passive voice clause, similar to the word 'by' in English. So 'The bread was eaten by me' is 'Inoko amula ba ei'. The suffix -ri is not needed. It's clear that the subject is being acted upon by the verb because of the presence of the phrase 'ba ei'.

'Inoko amulari ba ei' may still be said if 'ba ei' is an afterthought. Otherwise it sounds redundant.

Modifiers

As you may have guessed, Modifiers in Reisu go directly after their word they are modifying. For example: 'Oo ono kikino kei?' onp comes after oo instead of the other way around. Adjectives, adverbs, etc, all function the same way. They come directly after the word they modify. Here's an example of what placement of a modifier does to the sentence. The modifier is underlined.

Rigi raxi hata.
      (The) sun shines brightly.
Rigi hata raxi.
      (The) bright sun shines.

For clarification hata doesn't mean bright. I means very, intensely or intense. When raxi is used as a modifier it means bright, so it's awkward to repeat it. Adding the simple intensifier makes more sense.

And since we're talking about modifiers, for fun here's some color words:

Red	Akari
Orange	Itakari
Yellow	Itaka
Green	Afi
Blue	Lanu
Purple	Soxu

To be, the copula

"It depends on what your definition of 'is' is" -Bill Clinton

He got made fun of for saying that, but when you think about "to be" really means so many things in English. The sentence "I am" is so powerful because of it's ambiguity, and multiple meanings.

Reisu doesn't have such an over arching concept as this verb does in Engish. It's more broken down.

Kuala - To be the same as in identity.
Al kuala tivu.
      Al is the suit (of armor).

Luta - To belong to a specified class or group
Eisa luta emodo.
      We are people.

Maino - To have or show a specified quality or characteristic
Denu maino gura.
      The baby is hungry.
In many cases 'hola' for feel can also be used. This is mostly for first and second person subjects. For example this same sentence in first person: 'Ei hola gura'. I am hungry. (literally: feel hungry). But "Denu hola gura.", while comprehensible sounds awkward.

Reiki - To consist of, or to be made of
Laza reiki aa xusu.
      The ocean is all water.

Lamu - To be like, or have specified significance.
E lamu komonaxi.
      He's (like) a lion.

Kutu - To exist
Ei geki, mo ei kutu.
      I think, therefore I am

There are lots of other ways we use 'to be' of course, but we could just as well substitute other verbs even in English, so I won't cover that in this post, or it will become too long :)

One other fun thing with copula-type verbs in Reisu is they can be omitted if the contexts provides sufficient clues to render the copula obvious. In this case the object becomes a verb. For example:

     Ei okila bofi doro fe mama eino. E larelaila, kata e xodila
          I saw an old picture of my mom. She was beautiful, when she was young.

In this sentence it's obvious we are saying that the mother has beauty and has youth (maino). So instead of saying "E mainola larelai, kata e mainola xodi" we make larelai (beautiful) and xodi (young) into verbs. Both "E mainola larelai" and "E larelaila" are correct and appropriate in this context.

Questions

So, in a a lot of my example texts there are questions, and you might have already figured out how to make questions, but here's where I'm actually going to explain it. Reisu has a SVO word order. This does not change when we have a question. The question word is still the object, so it still goes at the end.

Any sentence can be made into a question by adding nei, but there are other question words that get more specific. Like most things in Reisu there's a pretty simple pattern to it.

What, Who	Kei
Where	Dei
When	Zei
Why	Bei
How much, How many	Jei
What kind	Vei
Which, Which one	Zei
How	Mei
Question particle	Nei

Examples:
O hola mei?
     Translation: How do you feel?
     Transliteration: You feel how?
Kata neina zei?
     Translation: What time is it?
     Transliteration: Time says when?
Fagevo geri jei?
     Translation: How much for the blanket?
     Transliteration: Blanket(that) costs how much?

Conjugating modality

Besides what's covered in my previous verb conjugation post, verbs can also be conjugated for some modalities. This is done with prefixes.

To Need - Ru Fahei
	Positive	Negative
Basic	Ifahei	Ufahei
Do	Kifahei	Kufahei
Will	Sifahei	Sufahei
Would	Zifahei	Zufahei
Can	Lifahei	Lufahei
Could	Pifahei	Pufahei
May/might	Mifahei	Mufahei
Must	Nifahei	Nufahei
Ought to/should	Xifahei	Xufahei

The basic positive and negative forms are mostly used for answer yes/no questions. The most correct way to answer a question is to repeat the verb with i- or u-.

Example:
O amufu gaparu nei?
     Will you eat the apple?
Ihamufu/Uhamufu
     Yes/No (in the future)
Ihamu/Uhamu
     Yes/No (now)
I/U
     Yes/No (impolite, implies annoyance or frustration with the question)

The other modalities are used similarly to their English equivalents. For example will gets the prefix si-, and will not gets the prefix su-.

Just the prefixes:

Modality	Positive	Negative
Basic	I-	U-
Do	Ki-	Ku-
Will	Si-	Su-
Would	Zi-	Zu-
Can	Li-	Lu-
Could	Pi-	Pu-
May/might	Mi-	Mu-
Must	Ni-	Nu-
Ought to/should	Xi-	Xu-

Greetings!

Paxido emodohaa! Let's talk about greetings. I'm going to start with an example conversation, and then translate it.

Two people meeting for the first time.
Susanna: Paxido.
Eddie: Paxido, o hola pa xidoki aku nei?
Susanna: Ihola, o nei?
Eddie: Ihola, xati.
Susanna: Naapa. Oo ono kikila kei?
Eddie: Kikila Eddie, oo ono nei?
Susanna: Susanna.
Eddie: Gutula aku, Susanna.
Susanna: Gutula aku, okiaku.
Eddie: Okiaku.

Translation (Not Literal).
Susanna: Hello
Eddie: Hello, how are you?
Susanna: Good, and you?
Eddie: Good, thank you.
Susanna: You're welcome. What's your name?
Eddie: Eddie, and yours?
Susanna: Susanna.
Eddie: Nice to meet you, Susanna.
Susanna: Nice to meet you too, goodbye.
Eddie: Goodbye.

So there's lots of grammar things I can talk about which have examples in the above conversion, but the one I'm going to pick deals directly with pronunciation. The double vowel. When the vowel is written twice It's held out longer. Ideally each syllable takes up one "beat", unless the vowel is written twice. Then the vowel is held for two "beats". The length of the "beat" depends on how quickly you are speaking, and isn't always precise depending on where the stress is in the sentence.

So for the sentence, What is your name?, there are 7 beats, even though there are only 6 syllables
Beats: O-o-o-no-ki-ki-no-kei?
Syllables: Oo-o-no-ki-ki-no-kei?

And for those that want more grammar explanation it will come, but see what you can reason out with this. Word by word literal transaction.
Susanna: Hello
Eddie: Hello, you feel in spirit good [question]?
Susanna: Feel(positive), you [question]?
Eddie: Feel(positive), thank.
Susanna: Welcome(as in you're welcome). Name your call(past) what?
Eddie: Call(past) Eddie, name your [question]?
Susanna: Susanna.
Eddie: Meet(past) good, Susanna.
Susanna: Meet(past) good, Goodbye.
Eddie: Goodbye.