Hinanesti: Ni Hrian Wy
A few weeks ago I dropped some rihanai in an RPG.net thread about Trek languages, and someone commented that it was funny seeing someone with a Fluttershy avatar speaking Romulan. At the time I couldn't think of a response, but yesterday it occurred to me that translating "friendship is magic" into rihanai would have made a snappy comeback.
Which, in turn, led me to wonder how I'd translate it into hinanesti.
(1) conveniently has a word for magic, and while it doesn't have friendship, it has one for friend.
lerret: magic
revanthas: friend
I don't know if I like lerret, though. It sounds a bit harsh for an elven word. And revanthas is a pretty long word for friend.
Idea! When I made up the list of esti consonants, I included preaspirated versions of k, l and r. I could change the first letter of lerret to the preaspirated l. The IPA notation for that is ʰl, but in regular text I usually just write it hl.
And I will arbitrarily change the definition of revanthas from friend to friendship. Which gives me the -ship suffix for other words, as well.
Meliathas: "courtship" (from meliad, to court)
Seradthas: "hardship"
Lianthas: "lordship"
So, how about the verb to be? As mentioned in an earlier entry, I came up with the word ynili for I am, and decided that the y- prefix was the conjugated form of to be. So what should the verb look like when it's not a prefix?
Wait a minute, if I can attach it as a prefix to a pronoun, why not to a noun?
Ergo, hlerret, yrevanthas. (Remember, OSV sentence order, so magic comes first.)
And of course:
ni: "my"
hrian: "pony"
wy: "little"
Which, in turn, led me to wonder how I'd translate it into hinanesti.
(1) conveniently has a word for magic, and while it doesn't have friendship, it has one for friend.
lerret: magic
revanthas: friend
I don't know if I like lerret, though. It sounds a bit harsh for an elven word. And revanthas is a pretty long word for friend.
Idea! When I made up the list of esti consonants, I included preaspirated versions of k, l and r. I could change the first letter of lerret to the preaspirated l. The IPA notation for that is ʰl, but in regular text I usually just write it hl.
And I will arbitrarily change the definition of revanthas from friend to friendship. Which gives me the -ship suffix for other words, as well.
Meliathas: "courtship" (from meliad, to court)
Seradthas: "hardship"
Lianthas: "lordship"
So, how about the verb to be? As mentioned in an earlier entry, I came up with the word ynili for I am, and decided that the y- prefix was the conjugated form of to be. So what should the verb look like when it's not a prefix?
Wait a minute, if I can attach it as a prefix to a pronoun, why not to a noun?
Ergo, hlerret, yrevanthas. (Remember, OSV sentence order, so magic comes first.)
And of course:
ni: "my"
hrian: "pony"
wy: "little"