A short gothic poem

[David Connolly]

These are good comments.  One thing I wanted to ask/point out--I thought genitive of "aiws" was "aiwins" (not "aiwis") - ?  But looking in my notes and books to try to verify I couldn't find the form, so I am not 100% sure about this.  




________________________________
 From: anheropl0x <anheropl0x at gmail.com>
To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2013 3:12 AM
Subject: [gothic-l] Re: A short gothic poem
 


  
The first line is good.
Second, "buried" is passive, where "fulhans" is active. You can either use "fulhada" (is buried) or "fulhan(o) was". Into should probably be rendered as "inn." This would place "abyss" into the dative, I believe, which makes it "afgrundiþai." The genitive singular of ufarmaudei is ufarmaudeins.
Third, the closest thing I could find to across would be "hindana" which means "on yon side of." This works best I think, because the lyrics imply something positioned there, not moving across the river. Hindana puts the noun it governs into the genitive, making ahva > ahvos. Ahva is also feminine, not neuter (which uses þata), so the phrase might be rendered "Hindana þizos ahvos". Andeis is fine, but aiws needs to be in the genitive, which is aiwis.
Fourth, rather simple, you've the infinitive "to be." What you need is to make it subjunctive, since you're not saying "Revenge is glorious" but "Revenge be glorious," much like how "Long live the king" is different from "The king lives long." The third person singular subjunctive is sijai (compare German "So sei es" "so be it"). I would also place the verb between the nouns, but that's just me.

Hope this isn't all too technical for you, and that it helps you a lot.

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "nodead4" <nodead4 at ...> wrote:
>
> Hello all, I have composed a short poem Gothic language. I'm not a linguist nor an expert, so there will be several mistakes. Some help is requested to make it right. (This is part of a song in english, but I wanted to include this speech in a middle section).
> 
> 
> Hvar ist othal unsar? (where is our heritage?)
> Fulhans ana ufar maudeis af-grunditha (buried into the abyss of oblivion)
> Thairh thata ahwa,  aiws and�is (across the river, the end of an era)
> Wolthags fraweit wisan. (Glorious revenge be)
> 
> 
> Thanx in advance.
>


 

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