Mystery Language

[Masha Belyavski-Frank]

If it is supposed to be SC, the closest -- and nonsensical phrase -- would 
be Ti ga mi bor nije rusa:  lit. 'You it to me
a pine tree is not a celandine.'

The grammar is incorrect, and I have never heard the phrase about bor and 
rusa referring to 'over my dead body.'
He could have taken the words from SC, and made this mish-mash, or it could 
be from another language.

Masha Belyavski-Frank

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "STEPHEN PEARL" <sbpearl1 at VERIZON.NET>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 8:59 PM
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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