NOV NOV JUN 10 2009 2012 2014 4 captures 13 Nov 09 - 19 Jul 14

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We’ve seen the most basic words for some functions of the healthy female body; it shouldn’t surprise you to find that there are more, richer terms for this realm of women’s experience.

Some of the words in the vocabulary of this lesson were coined using non-standard processes, eliding (deleting) various parts of the constituent words. The etymologies I’m giving here, where not straightforward, are my best guesses as to the words that inspired these words.

Vocabulary

Female Sexual Anatomy

Menstruation

We’ve already seen osháana (to menstruate; menstrual). And, from Suzette Haden Elgin:

Pregnancy

We’ve already seen lawida (to be pregnant).

Menopause

We’ve already seen zháadin (to menopause). What we haven’t seen is its etymology: [zháa (wrinkle (in the skin))].

Blood

We’ve already seen ili (water) and óol (moon), the bases for most of these words.

Male Sexual Anatomy

Beware puns “confusing” bom (penis) with bom (household oil)! Hee hee!

Exercises

I’ve invited some friends to help by providing sentences for us to translate—and one even gave us some short poems! The exercises for this lesson are going to be a little different from what we’ve seen before; I’ll be giving their original English for you to translate and follow with a note or two as to why I chose to translate the text as I did and a space for you to translate into Láadan and then back into English. I’ll then present my translation with morphemic analysis and a re-translation into English. You might want to cover my version, do your own, and then compare the two.

From Heather:

I chose to translate this sentence using “bróo” (because) rather than “widahath” (when).

Bíi eril ásháana be bróo lothel be lawida rahóo behé wáa.

She menstruated joyfully because she knew that she was not pregnant.

When I spoke to Heather about this sentence, she made it clear that her intention was for the English phrase “very pregnant” to be translated “widazhad” (pregnant, late in term and eager for the end).

Do you remember the idiom for “about X”? We use “bethu” [be (X) + –thu (partitive)], literally “of him/her/it”. This is what we would use for “of chocolate” in #2.

Bíi ozh widazhad Bétheni beháa ahana bethuth wáa.

Bethany, who is pregnant, near term and eager for the end, dreams about chocolate.

Grammatically, we cannot modify “lover” with both “new” and “lady”; the relativizing prefix will operate on only one of them at a time. I therefore chose to incorporate “lady” into “lover”: “lilahá” (doer of the female sex act).

Bíi en rawith nemeháalish bethath zhe en wobun wolilahá betho wáa.

No-one understands her clitoris like her new lover does.

From Layne:

The first sentence isn’t, in fact, a sentence; it seems more in the nature of a warning—at least that’s the way I perceive it. We need a word for “hot flash”; the word is “zháahóowadin” (hot flash, primary indicator of full menopause) [zháadin (menopause) + óowa (fire)] {AB & LA}; it was coined during the writing of this lesson in response to Layne’s expressed need for a word for this meaning and has been added to the official Láadan dictionary. Another word we require is “honáal” (the hours between midnight and dawn) {SH}. We also need a new verb: “yime” means “to run” {CH}. The phrase “Blind Snow Storm” doesn’t really mean that the storm cannot see; it means that the storm is so severe that we cannot see in it—seems like a job for a degree marker.

Bée zháahóowadin honáaleya wo! Yime be, bud raden, rohorothúul hishethudi nil.

[warning] Hot-flash in the wee hours! She runs, without clothing, into the magnificently intense snow-storm.

I chose to translate “turn blood into water” as “CAUSEto + Change | Blood + OBJ | Water + Goal”. “To drink her fill” I chose to translate as “Drink | X:1 | Be full | X:1 + EMBED + TIME | Until”. The rest should be fairly straightforward.

Bíidu bi wozháa wowothá;

[Statement, poetic] She is [a/the] wrinkled sage;

Dósheb bi luhilith ilidi

She changes blood to water

Id rilin bi ume bihéya hathobéeya

And then she drinks until she is full

Óol luhilithuha yil wo.

Under the moon of blood.

This is given as a definition, so I chose to translate it as “in teaching”—in spite of the poetic nature of its form. We have no word for “tattoo”; I used “uzh” (symbol—of notation, alphabet, orthography)—loosely, “glyph.” We also have no word for “upholstery” or “upholstered”; I chose to translate this as “the cloth of the chair.” The phrase “left behind” is an idiom for which we have no counterpart in Láadan; I chose to render it using the clause “she goes” as an embedded Time-case element.

Bíidi desháana náham woshahina wohuzh od dalewodewanethuha sháad behéya arileháa wa.

Early menstruation is the rosy glyph that is still on the fabric of a chair after she goes.

We’ve just been given words for “regret”, “fret”, and “worry”: “lhith” (to fret) [lith (think) + lh (pejorative)]; “lhitheril” (to regret) [lhith (fret) + eril (past)]; and “lhitharil” (to worry) [lhith (fret) + aril (future)]. Along with these came “litheril” (reminisce) [lith (think) + eril (past)] and “litharil” (anticipate) [lith (think) + aril (future)]. All these are from {JLP & EC}.

Note how Láadan is creeping into Layne’s sentences; it’s so much more convenient to have the right word!

Bíi eril nin wesháana lhitharil bethoth, izh thad neril be neda wa.

Menstruating late caused her worry, but she could only wait.

It feels odd in Láadan, but for poetic emphasis I’ve deviated from standard Láadan word-order; I’ve more closely mirrored the English. I’m also introducing a new verb here: “dul” (to refresh; to give rest); in this construction husháana, rather than “refreshing” (dul) her, causes her to “refresh” (dódul) “herself” (beth beyóoth). We also lack a word for “nest”, so I used a circumlocution, drawing a word-picture of many pillows around her.

Bíidu zhu theshethudan i thomedan menede beha o,

With tea of herbs and many pillows around her,

eril dódul husháana beth beyóoth wo.

painful menstruation caused her to give herself a rest.

I’m introducing a new verb, “rumad” (to hide; to cover; to put away) {SH}.

Bíidu merumad liliháaláa woháya wohabathedeth,

Labia hide the beautiful clitoris,

Melili bezh woho mahawáan;

They all are wet from sexual desire;

Menéde mehedethi bezh woho

They all want to share

wolema wodama shimáthoth wo.

a sexual partner’s gentle touch.

Notice the parallel construction in the English distinguishing “she” from “the other”. In Láadan we have no way to phrase “the other” so I recast the poem (with Layne’s approval) in terms of “I” and “she”.

Bíidu eril wod i delishe neda lehóo,

I only sat and wept,

Izh nahal i nawush behóo wo.

But she began to work and sweep.

Bíidu mime neda lehóo bebáawáanehée,

I only asked why

Widahath dóhéthe behóo demeth i il behóo thosheth wo.

When she cleaned the window and regarded the sky.

There’s a new word (invented for this exercise, and since added to the official Láadan dictionary): “niloma” (palm of the hand) [nil (inside) + oma (hand)]. Added to the dictionary along with “niloma”; was “raniloma” (back of the hand) [ranil (outside) + oma (hand)].

There’s another word that we’re encountering for the first time: “méeshim” (sexual pleasure) [méesh (pleasure, not sexual) + shim (to sex-act)]. Yes, “méesh” (pleasure, not sexual) is also a new word.

As with so many plays on words—even ones, like this one, intended to work on puns in another language—the translation is nowhere nearly so elegant as the original. Indeed, part of my difficulty with the punning aspect of this piece is that I’m reluctant to use “niloma” (palm) as a verb. Try your hand at it; you may do better than I.

Bíida bre dóham ne bom nilomaha nil dama ne bometh nilomananehéya eril, ébre dama wobom woniloma bometh méeshimenalehal wa.

[Jest] If you put oil in the palm before you touch the penis with the palm, then the oily palm touches the penis quite sexual-pleasurably.

On the other hand (pun discovered), what if we did use “niloma” as a verb? We might come up with....

Bíida bre dóham ne bometh nilomaha dóham ne nilomath bomehahéya eril, ébre niloma wobom woniloma bometh méeshimenalehal wa.

[Jest] If you put oil on the palm before you palm the penis, then the oily palm palms the penis quite sexual-pleasurably.