Another Damn "Let It Go" Thing

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Okay, I know it's late in the game, but I finally got my notes about my Spritelang Mark II version of "Let It Go" written up, so I figured I'd share it with y'all. Conlangs are for playing with, dangit!

(In case you managed to avoid the Frozen mania storm early this year, here's the song, which is AWESOME. In case you haven't managed to avoid the storm and are fucking SICK of this song, this version may be more helpful.)

Zzosi'be

Exal Xibu e miselao midu
Xavi'be juale
Na majema: ahiv pe
Lav itekoxe'be
Jhoto sueslao pelkef ji progu poko be
Ji vasisevikolsem'be

"Sovidek'tima
Ji xavidek
Kirildek'u'uv poko kekek
Abluvidek
Kim dukzir'tima"
Hei--baz'tima

Zzosi'be
Zzosi'be
Voritvikols'be volo
Zzosi'be
Zzosi'be
Pafubaz'be na helo
Basanuvi'be'po
Ka los'tima
Bzzoso na utase
Hejheubaz'be na misema

Nat diso mali pinot
Siset mulj salahema
Axaxma ka gojhem'poma'be
Baive'poma nat kima

Xatai'be'po
Ka nukkols'be
Dido'be ukanma
bom viske
Nakauvi'be
Kilu kim gra
Be pra

Zzosi'be
Zzosi'be
Nusau'be na konane
Zzosi'be
Zzosi'be
Vilu volo zzolozir'be
Midu be
Bom mulj kibuma
Bzzoso na utase ...

Bikis tale'ben flu siutlao om solage
Uliolue blu'ben ko ikilma triskale
Ji loszon'po'be min uvelutu ikekek
Batvijeo'be nid
Midu vi voritdek

Zzosi'be
Zzosi'be
Ulu'be ko Koko xagen
Zzosi'be
Zzosi'be
Seres hafutlo hiksen
Midu be, bom mulj na orema
Bzzoso na utase
Hejheubaz'be na misema


Translation!

I Release

The moon shines on the snow here
I don't see a footprint
The mountains seem empty
Except for me
The wind howls loud and lonely like me
And I couldn't be silent

"They must not know
And they must not see
You must hold yourself like ice
[You] must not feel
Or they will find out"
Well--they have!

I release
I release
I can't hide again
I release
I release
I cast aside the shell
I don't care
What they say
The storm rages
I have befriended the snowflakes

With very little distance
All shadows disappear
Fears that held me
Leave with them

I want to see
What I can do
I have limits
To test
I don't need
Good or bad
I'm free

I release
I release
I leap over the sky
I release
I release
I'll never cry again
Here I am
For all time
The storm rages ...

My power swirls through air to ground
My soul spirals as crystal fractals
And this icy revelation is telling me
I don't want to return
Here I needn't hide

I release
I release
I rise like a new sun
I release
I release
Sadness comes to an end
Here I am
For all the days
The storm rages
I have befriended the snowflakes.

A few notes:

- I wrote the first version of Luamavan in junior high, and my most extensive non-English experience at the time was with Spanish. As such, I unconsciously incorporated a vaguely Spanish accent into it--the unvoiced stops are never aspirated, /r/ is an alveolar flap, the syllabic stress pattern is the same, all the vowels are classic, etc.

- Another thing that's carried over from my teenage years is the uninformed and frankly stupid English transcription:
1. The /zz/ and /jh/ digraphs. /zz/ is a voiced alveolar trill (equivalent to the Spanish /rr/); /jh/ is its unvoiced counterpart. I came up with them purely because I liked the way those digraphs looked and it made sense in my synesthetic head. I kept them in because fuck you, that's still the case even though I know a little bit more about standard phonemic notation.
2. Yeah, yeah, I know. The damned apostrophes. Actually, these are not random. They appear when a pronoun follows its verb. It's meant to correspond with a punctuation mark in the original Luamavan alphabet.

- /x/ is a [ȝ] sound--like the s in Asia

- /j/ is [dȝ]--basically, the way it sounds in English

- The basic word order is verb-subject-object. As mentioned, pronouns follow verbs with apostrophes, but nouns do not. Word order is particularly important as there are no case inflections (except for a genitive that's an extension of the pronominal affixation).

- Verbs have heavy polysynthetic inflection, though--they have affixes for passivization, negation, conditionality, evidentiality, mood, aspect, and tense, which can make for some monstrous verbs.* Vasisevikolsem'be, "I couldn't be silent," isn't even particularly huge.

- The first version of Luamavan had a copula, but it has since been dropped. While I've done a few languages where there was never really a copula, I like the idea of one where there is evidence that there used to be one. In this case the verbal affixes are breaking into adverbial disjuncts that get tacked onto sentences. So -pe-, the evidential affix for "seem," gets tacked onto the end of na majema: ahiv ("the mountains: empty") to indicate "the mountains seem to be empty." Or "apparently the mountains are empty."


... Anyway. I could go on forever, but mostly I just wanted to get this out. Hope you guys enjoy it!


*I cribbed this bit of polysynthesis loosely from Swahili, but the setup of slots for various affixes, even if the affixes aren't the same, seems to have more in common with Klingon now. I swear I didn't do that on purpose.

Comments

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

"I have befriended the snowflakes" has got to be my fave part of the translation.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* I ALMOST went with the more direct translation, which is more like "I have friended the snowflakes," but In This Day And Age that sounds like something else.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

This, and therefor you, are awesome! (I weep for my lack of creativity)

Also i saw this and thought of you - http://www.cracked.com/article_21556_the-5-craziest-human-languages-spoken-around-world.html - I would be stuffed in teh Canary Islands since i can't whistle!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Fun!

Somebody on the conlangs Facebook group did a translation of "Never Gonna Give you Up". It strikes me that "The Terrible Secret of Space" would also be a good translation exercise.