Comments on the Pictorial Dictionary?

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

The idea that the word pekay means ‘equal’ is based entirely on a guess I made years ago as to the possible interpretation of the final clause in Gehn’s journal entries published in the Riven Soundtrack booklet:

loymaht reloopahtee mot komahrenteet khahpo kokeneet pekay b’rish be motee
‘though the [dangers (?)] which followed perhaps were nearly [equal (?)] to those’.

Based on our further knowledge of D’ni gained since then, this is a very suspect translation. We know that ‘danger’ is paychahvo, and ‘near’ is fahsh, so ‘nearly’ would br fahshesh. Also as far as we know b’rish (literally ‘to twenty’) only indicates degree of intensity of a quality, like English “very” or “so”; and, as Korovev has pointed out, “equal” in the mathematical sense (which Larry depicts in his dictionary) has an absolute meaning which cannot be qualified in this way — one does not say ** “X is very equal to Y.”

So we really need to come up with better ideas for what the words loopah and pekay actually mean.
Any suggestions :?:

larryf58 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:17 pm

"Trial", or maybe "event" might fit for lūpa (currently, event has been proposed as a meaning for vīu, but that's far from certain).

In any case, what are the surrounding sentences? Without context, wild guesses are all that can be made.

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

Here is the context:

… … … .bree pahm
sen kotænuheet tsahnosh trefahdho

.reyeepay kolæneet me gormot
tetemo kojahgahen areeuhtahv fooroo
loymaht reloopahtee mot komahrenteet
khahpo kokeneet pekay b’rish be motee

… … … Two or three [tænuh]ed permanently in/with/by the experience.
The [yeepay] they [læn]ed from then in/by/with [temo] [jahgah]ed sufficient protection
though the [loopah]s which followed perhaps were very [pekay] to those.

We know that tænuh refers to something the workers “suffered” because of something “harsh” in the environment in the 233rd Age and the it could be “temporary” or “permanent.” Personally I think it was caused by the light, and that some of Gehn’s Rivenese workers were blinded by its effects; but I don’t know that there has ever been any corroboration or even a hint of this from RAWA or anyone at Cyan, and there could be some other explanation.

Shorah

larryf58 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 2:13 am

Hmm. For pekā, would "harmful" or "damaging" make sense? That assumes "protection" is the subject motē refers to.

KathAveara · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:35 am

That would work, if we are allowed to translate be as "compared to". But then, if a comparison is being made, why not use iney "more than"? E.g. kokeneet pekey b'rish iney motee "... were much more harmful than those." Some sort of implicitly relative adjective, such as "similar" or "different" would solve that semantic problem, though they wouldn't fit so well, based on our current understanding of the passage. Half the problem is that we don't know what a loopah is, as Khrees says.

korovev · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:19 am

From the glimpse of 233 that we had in Riven, the kinds of (partially reversible) damage I can think of is UV light, heat, chemicals in the atmosphere or radiation (other than light). Probably light, since Gehn can stay outside in his coat without a mask, although he probably didn’t stay there for 6 hours.

Maybe peké actually means “different”? And lúpa “issue, problem”?

larryf58 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:43 pm

korovev wrote:

From the glimpse of 233 that we had in Riven, the kinds of (partially reversible) damage I can think of is UV light, heat, chemicals in the atmosphere or radiation (other than light). Probably light, since Gehn can stay outside in his coat without a mask, although he probably didn’t stay there for 6 hours.

Maybe peké actually means “different”? And lúpa “issue, problem”?

Dhānoy has been proposed to mean some variation of "problem/obstacle" from the sentence "loymat lekenēt dhānoytē para treshēga" (Although there have been great [obstacle]s in the [way].) But since that might imply something like "obstacle" instead of "problem", maybe you're on to something. However, in English we tend to say "different from" instead of "different to", which may be a factor.

korovev · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:48 pm

It would fit if ðénó meant “delay”. And how English works is not necessarily a factor

larryf58 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 2:26 pm

korovev wrote:

It would fit if ðénó meant “delay”. And how English works is not necessarily a factor

Not necessarily, agreed. But RAWA is a native English speaker, and it could color his work unless he's consciously trying to prevent that. So it's always a possible factor.

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

Maybe it would help to plug in some tentative meanings for other uncertain words in the context, under the hypothesis that tænuh means ‘blind’ or ‘become blind’:

Yes our first small group (of) workers
working without the necessary [tsahroo] protection
suffered temporary [blind]ness [temo]
they just [spent (?)] a few 6-hour-periods in the [ahchah].
Two or three were [blind]ed permanently by the experience.

The [eye-gear (?)] they [wore] from then [tetemo] [provid]ed sufficient protection
though the [loopah]s which followed perhaps were very [pekay] to those.

An interesting question is what “those” refers to, presumably some previous plural noun to which “the loopah-s which followed” are being compared or contrasted. But the only plurals before this are teegtahvtee and gahrtahvotee in the previous paragraph and dhaynoytee and endaytahntee in the first paragraph of the text. Perhaps motee is short for loopahtee motee, in which case loopah could be a general term for what happened to the workers, as suggested by Korovev, such as ‘problem’ or ‘accident’.

If so, then it might make sense that pekay means ‘similar’, since Gehn equivocates by saying perhaps they were very pekay. In the first paragraph of the excerpt he mentions “the harsh nature of the ahchah”; then in the next paragraph he mentions “the toxic nature of the víduh.” He explains further in the third paragraph about the ahchah as being the cause of the workers' tænuth. So maybe he is about to explain the even worse effect of the víduh.

Shorah

larryf58 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:03 pm

Hmm.

...although the [improvements] which followed perhaps were very [helpful / beneficial] to those.

That comes of assuming motē may refer to "eye-gear".

korovev · **Posted:** Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:46 pm

Eventually, they found out Gehn’s journal was written in Buffy speak...

:lol:

Khreestrefah · **Joined:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:01 pm **Posts:** 163

This does raise an interesting question.

In English words for things relating to the eyes are usually plural: glasses, spectacles, goggles but I don't know if that is widely true for languages in general. If it is then the fact that yeepay is singular might argue against tænuhth being 'blindness'. On the other hand this idiomatic fact in English is "inconvenient" insofar as one has to use another noun in order to refer multiple devices, as "three pairs of glasses"; something the D'ni may have preferred to avoid.

Shorah

KathAveara · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:34 am

To my knowledge, there is a cross-linguistic tendency for things pertaining to paired body parts to appear in the dual if there is one. Thus Egyptian pḥwy "buttocks" (later reinterpreted as a singular once the dual was lost). It stands to reason that languages without a dual will similarly still try to avoid the singular, and also to extend this tendency to things closely associated with these paired body parts. I can cite numerous English examples, like pants (British and American) and trousers.

KathAveara · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:37 am

On the latest post: poy refers to the plant kind of bulb. I'm sure you could find examples of a common kind of such.

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