Dear pollywog,
I have consulted a linguist friend of mine who specializes in the
agglutinative Uralic languages but also has a passing interest in
Native American languages. After studying his handbook of Algonquian
morphology and a Cheyenne lexicon, he concludes that the following are
fairly good renditions of your sentences. They are not the same word
for word, but they are semantically similar, preserving the spirit of
each respective English sentence.
You must appreciate that exact translation is not possible. For
example, there is no known Cheyenne word for the English "save" or
"rescue", but there is a word for "uplift" that can refer, in the
right context, to a body or a being withdrawn from the precipice.
Furthermore, note that the translations are compact because in the
Cheyenne language, grammatical relationships are expressed by
inflecting nouns rather than by inserting prepositions and verbs
between them.
Thank you for saving the life of my son.
Nea'e?e voose nae'ha.
Are your mother and father still alive?
Ne?ko naa eho metanêhehe?
You mean the sound of the ocean.
Nehe?etano mâhpeva mahtse.
There are only ten consonants in Cheyenne, eight of which are
pronounced approximately the same way as in English. The exceptions
are: 'x', which is halfway between the English 'k' and 'h'; and '?',
which is like the "sh" sound in "shoot".
The vowel 'a' is long, as in "far"; 'e' sounds like the 'i' in "sit";
and 'o' is long as in "bone". The variants 'â', 'ô', and 'ê' are
whispered, so that one utters them with a puff of breath instead of
humming with the vocal cords.
The apostrophe, as in "nea'e?e", indicates a glottal stop like the one
separating the syllables in "uh-uh" and "uh-oh". Doubling a vowel, as
in "voose", elongates it a little.
It has been a pleasure to address this question on your behalf.
Regards,
leapinglizard |
