Alice Myrtle Ashley Jones, 1916-2006

[ualarauans]

Hails!
Your translation is on no account "clumsy", I like it very much. I'd 
just have some questions if you don't mind?
Weggins falthanans – is it an accusativus absolutus in the 
sense "with folded wings"? Or you mean it be shortened from *weggins 
falthanans [habandei], lit. "she having folded the wings"? I don't 
remember exactly if there's some analogue of that absolute 
accusative construction in the Bible. Couldn't it be dative as well, 
e.g. *weggim falthanaim? Or maybe it's *izai weggins [izos] 
falthanai? The next strophe could be grammatically paralleled in a 
way like that: *weggim falthanaim, hairtin sweibandin. I don't 
intend this to be a kind of "correction", the original variant is 
very good, in particular I like the causative formation, nice way to 
enlarge the vocabulary from the language's own sources.
ni muna taujan – ni man taujan? Or perhaps optative *ni munjau?

Ualarauans

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Arthur Jones wrote to me yesterday to tell me that his mother 
passed
> away peacefully the previous night, aged nearly 90.  He also sent 
me
> this poem which he wrote for her, with a request that I turn it 
into
> Gothic.  Whether I've managed to wrangle any of Arthur's inspired
> wordplay into my favourite extinct language, I don't know; but 
here's
> my clumsy attempt for what it's worth, followed by the original in 
all
> its eloquence.
> 
> Araaiþei aflaiþ.
> Uz-u-staig afþliugandei,
> þau ga-u-dauf, weggins falþanans,
>    hairto swaibjandei,
> ni mag witan.
> Iþ þata ik sahv:
> faurþizei usliþi, si
> in hrigga gawandida sik, jah insahv aftra, jah smarkoda;
> jah þamma minnizo ni muna taujan.
> 
> The eagle-mother is gone.
> Whether she soared away,
> Or folded wings in plunge
>      heart-stopping,
> I cannot know.
> But this I saw:
> Before she left, she
> Gyred, and turned, and smiled;
> And I shall not do less.
> 
> Notes: the reconstructed words are all based on Old English roots,
> except for *swaibjan, a causative for 'sweiban', and *weggs, 
mi "wing"
> (=ON vængr).
>







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