A bit of Tangut
I'm not spending nearly as much time on Tangut as I hoped I would when I started this blog. But that's okay, there are many other very interesting languages I post regularly about. But recently I have found myself a Tangut Dictionary[1], so I can finally properly commence my translation endeavours. I decided I'd first start making word-per-word analyses of sentence I already have someone else's translation of.
Here then are some of the results so far:
|
dzjwo2 |
gjɨ |
ŋa2 |
·jij1 |
lạ1 |
kjɨ1 |
zow2 |
ŋa2 |
|
person |
one, indef. |
I, me |
gen-abs |
hand |
perfective |
grab |
1sg |
'Some person grabbed my hand'
Grammatical notes:
kjɨ is a perfective prefix connected with the verb zow. There's 6 of these prefixes, which one belongs to which verb is mostly lexically fixed. Apparently there's some indication that it used to be an indication of direction (which is still seen in some of Tangut's sister languages like Qiang).
This 6 prefix system is also seen with the Optative prefix, of which one day we'll surely see more. But it's very rare.
ŋa is the agreement suffix, always placed directly behind the verb (tense marking can still follow). Note how this is the exact same character/sound as I. This should actually be seen as a verbal conjugation that happens to be homophonous to the pronoun rather than pronoun repetition. Agreement in Tangut is quite complex, but technically speaking it agrees to the pronoun in the sentence if there is one. But not only the suffix is part of the agreement, also the vowel of the preceeding verb ablauts giving extra accuracy. Not all verbs have ablaut though. I hope this is one of them.
Because it looks like a theme 2 verb. theme 2 with 1sg suffix means that first person is subject, and 3rd person is object.
While a theme 1 verb with a 1 sg suffix means first person is object and either 2nd or 3rd is subject.
A quick searched turned out that there does not seem to be an ablauting form of this stem. Therefore the meaning technically speaking is ambiguous. Obviously though, it's far more sensical that it means 'Someone grabbed my hand' rather than 'my hand grabbed someone'.
·jij This is the genitive-absolutive suffix. When it's placed between two objects, it will create a possessive construction. While, when it's just placed after a noun phrase, it's the marker of the absolutive (Subject of intransitive verbs, object of transitive verbs). I'm quite sure the genitive use is limited to not be used as the subject of a transitive verb. There the relation would just be expressed by juxtaposition of two nouns. But don't pin me down on that, we'll see about this later.
dzjwo gjɨ It's interesting to see that this subject of a transitive verb does not take the ergative marker. The ergative marker is often elided, and the formation gives the impression that it might be artificial. More about that later.
[EDIT] O and I almost forgot, happy new year to everyone who's reading!
Comments
I think the characters are beautiful yet so strange. I'm so used to Chinese characters because of studying Mandarin that I can see a clear difference and yet it's interesting how the system is still based on the same stroke system, despite the stroke patterns looking "mangled". It's like listening to a language with phonemes that sound just like your native language, yet all the words and letters are mixed up, making it completely unintelligible to you.
I'm also learning Old Chinese bit by bit, because it's nice to know where a language you're studying comes from. The only similarity I notice with what you give above is that the Old Chinese 1ps pronoun is also *ŋa (hence Cantonese ngo and Mandarin wo).
Like Tangut sa2 from Chinese sa4 (which was *sat during Old Chinese I'm guessing, it at least was in middle Chinese ;) )
Yeah the characters really are a beautiful. We haven't been able to make much sense out of them though. Some have a very clear Radical-Phonetic split. Chinese style. Some are typically logographic (man above horse = ride). But some are Radical-Phonetic+some bizarre element. Sometimes it's radical-bizarre element with no apparent phonetic value, and other times it's just a collection of bizarre elements.
This has led some people to believe that the original Tangut writing system actually used phonetics of an other (unattested) language. For more information on the phonetic history and the structure of the Tangut characters I strongly suggest you check out this blog (which sadly doesn't have an RSS Feed): www.amritas.com