Mystery Language

[Imke Mendoza]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brewer, Michael" <brewerm at U.LIBRARY.ARIZONA.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Mystery Language


> Stephen, 
> 
> My Serbian, sadly, is not strong (having not really used it since I was
> an exchange student their in the early 1980s).  However, I can pull some
> words out of this jumble.  Ti ga mi (a series of pronouns that one, I
> think, only rarely finds in this order -- You [subject] it/him [direct
> object] me [indirect object]) and nije (isn't) seem to be in there.
> From there it all breaks down for me.  There are several possible words,
> but I don't know how they might all figure in the meaning.  There seem
> to be Rus (Russian) or Ruza (with a zh - Rose). The Bornie, could also
> be borni (military) or it could be some sort of colloquialism with bor
> (pine) and nije (isn't).  
> 
> Perhaps this rather lame attempt can be built on by someone who actually
> knows the language!
> 
> mb
> 
> Michael Brewer
> Slavic Studies, German Studies & Media Arts Librarian
> University of Arizona Library A210
> 1510 E. University
> P.O. Box 210055
> Tucson, AZ 85721
> Voice: 520.307.2771
> Fax: 520.621.9733
> brewerm at u.library.arizona.edu
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of STEPHEN PEARL
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 6:00 PM
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Mystery Language
> 
> Dear SEELANGERS,
>   
>       In one of his books, "Over My Dead Body", Rex Stout, the creator 
> of the master detective, Nero Wolfe, has a bogus Yugoslav Princess 
> utter the following : "Teega mee Bornie Roosa". This expression is a 
> phonetic representation of her words transcribed by Wolfe's assistant
> and 
> amanuensis, Archie Goodwin, a notorious and unrepentant monoglot. The 
> meaning of the words was: "Over my dead body" and were understood by
> Nero 
> Wolfe, a native Montenegrin and speaker of what was then Serbo-Croatian,
> 
> as well as six or seven other languages.
>   
>      The reader is clearly intended to assume that the language in 
> which these words were uttered was some kind of "Yugoslav"/
> Balkan/Slavic 
> language. Over the years I have asked speakers of pretty well every 
> European language I can think of [ except for Romany, a language of
> which 
> I have never been able to find a speaker]  if they could identify the 
> language in question, but have come up empty.
>   
>      It is possible that Rex Stout was fooling us all and simply 
> concocted a non-existent language for the purpose, except that it is
> hard to 
> imagine what his motive could have been, since nearly all his readers 
> would simply have assumed that it was "Yugoslavian" and the joke, if 
> any, would have been lost on them.
>   
>     My quality of life would be minutely, but distinctly, improved if 
> anyone out there could remove the fly from my ointment by recognising 
> and identifying for me the language in which these words were uttered. 
> Thank you.
> 
> 
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