Re: a King's proverb

    By the way, before I get to the translation, I think it's funny how we've
been talking about pro-verbs, and now we have a proverb.  ~:)


In a message dated 6/15/01 10:24:16 AM, daniel.andreasson@TELIA.COM writes:

<<  "Before you choose your enemy, speak his language." >>

In Megdevi (by the way, this alerted me to the fact that I didn't yet have a
word for "to choose"!  Who'duh thunk it?):

    "SAjn Zoj saNali pegIxIm ZojijIm, dZaDadZasa wAj doj."

    No time for an interlinear.

1.) SAjn: preposition/prefix meaning "before", temporal sense only.
2.) Zoj: "you".
3.) saNali: "choose" in the present, active tense.
4.) pegIxIm: "foe", featuring "Im" as the accusative marker.
5.) ZojijIm: "ij" turns it into a possessive, and "Im" is to agree with
"foe".  This whole bit translates as "before (the time in which) you are
choosing your enemy".
6.) dZaDadZasa: "dZa" is a prefix which turns a naturally transitive verb
into an intransitive verb.  "DadZasa" means "to speak (a language,
specifically)", and the "a" ending is the command form.
7.) "wAj": preposition meaning "similar to", "the same as", "as", "like".
8.) "doj": kind of means "it".  It's used whenever gender is not specified,
so as not to be misogynistic.  This last part translates as, "speak like
him/her".

~:)

-David

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