PIE poetry and stories - Not just Schleicher - Rachmaninov song
From: C. Darwin Goranson
Message: 48087
Date: 2007-03-26
Despite the unfinished nature of the Proto-Indo-European grammar and
vocabulary, both of which will never be fully reconstructed with
certainty, I believe that there has been an unfortunate lack of
boldness to assert Proto-Indo-European as more than just an idea.
It's survived for nearly 2 centuries in some form or another, and is
still very much alive.
August Schleicher, I believe, was on the right track when he
attempted to write a story in PIE (i.e. The Sheep and the Horse).
There have indeed been a few, highly sporadic attempts since then to
write short stories in Proto-Indo-European, but they are very rare.
I think this sparsity of would-be PIE materials should be ended.
Especially considering the groundbreaking phrase-comparison and myth-
comparison work of people like Calvert Watkins, by which it is
possible to find the overall plot-lines of myths that likely are of
PIEan origin, we have much material that could be used as a basis for
re-realizing a Proto-Indo-European story.
Myself, I'm trying a slight alternative. Some more modern poetic
texts lend themselves marvelously to the reconstructed general PIE
mindset. While admittedly there is a need to create new words by
adding suffixes to roots, there are still enough reconstructed forms
to make a rough translation. Being of a musical mind myself, I find
most of these poems in Lieder. One such Lied is in fact not a Lied
proper, but Russian in origin, by A. Kruglov, set to music by
Rachmaninov.
§Á - §ß§Ö §á§â§à§â§à§Ü, §ñ §ß§Ö §Ò§à§Ö§è,
§Á - §ß§Ö §å§é§Ú§ä§Ö§Ý§î §Þ§Ú§â§Ñ.
§Á §Ò§à§Ø§î§Ö§Û §Þ§Ú§Ý§à§ã§ä§î§ð - §á§Ö§Ó§Ö§è,
§®§à§× §à§â§å§Ø§î§Ö - §Ý§Ú§â§Ñ.
§Á §Ó§à§Ý§ð §¤§à§ã§á§à§Õ§Ñ §ä§Ó§à§â§ð,
§³§à§ð§Ù§Ñ §Ú§Ù§Ò§Ö§Ô§Ñ§ñ §ã §Ý§à§Ø§î§ð,
§Á §ã§Ö§â§Õ§è§å §á§Ö§ã§ß§å §Ô§à§Ó§à§â§ð,
§¢§å§Ø§å §Ó §ß§Ö§Þ §Ú§ã§Ü§â§å §Ò§à§Ø§î§ð.
I [am] not a prophet, I [am] not a warrior,
I [am] not a teacher of the world.
I by god's grace [am] a singer,
My weapon - a lyre.
I do God's will,
shunning alliance with lies.
I speak to the heart through song,
[and] in it kindle the spark of God.
Naturally, my attempted PIE version is incomplete:
ne h1eg^¨®H wo:ts, ne h1eg^ yeudhm¨®s,
ne h1eg^om denster dhg^h¨®mom.
h1eg^om, deiw¨®s h1ens-dhroh1 kantrom,
h1moi [weapon] [harp].
k¨®nmi dhe:h1sos wek^trom,
ne k^red-dheh1-mi melsu. [an admitted approximation, but fitting]
k^¨¦:rdei sh2¨®menh1 wekWmi,
h1ger-[infinitive suffix] [in it] [spark] diwy¨®s.
The grammar I used is roughly like this:
Not I seer, not I fighter,
not I teacher world-of
I, God's grace-(that which VERBs)-by singer,
my [weapon] [harp].
I do/make the Lord's wishing-(de-verbing suffix "that which is VERB")
Not put-heart-I lie-in.
Heart-to song-by speak-I,
wake-[ing] [it-in] [spark] God-related.
Does this make sense or work so far, considering the generally
accepted grammar of PIE? Does anybody know if PIE had an infinitive
form for verbs, or something equivalent to that? How would one do the
locative for the demonstrative pronoun?