Page talk:The Lord’s prayer in five hundred languages.pdf/125
Add topicIdentifying Non-Moksha features in the Cyrillic Erzya version
[edit]«The Lord's Prayer in five-hundred languages» is an undertaking. Here, however, the language form identified as «Moksha» in the publication is, in fact, Erzya. The following is a list of features in the text that minimize the plausibility of the text's being «Mokshen».
(1) the oblique forms of the personal pronouns incorporate person-specific person markers, i.e., (Pl1+Gen) мине́къ < минь+нек, (Pl1+Dat) миня́некъ < миня́+нек; (Sg2) то́нть < то́нь+ть. In Moksha, the possessive marker does not generally appear in the genitive. The presence of ‹+ть› might indicates this is probably not from the Erzian Southeastern Dialect. (cf. Feoktistow 1990: XXXI–LXXXVI) (2) The indicative non-past first person plural marker ‹-танокъ› in ‹ка́дтанокъ› 'we leave' would indicate Erzia Central and NW Dialects, whereas in general Moksha indicates this function with ‹-тама›, while some Erzia dialect may also have something close to the Moksha ‹-тама› for (Pl1). (3) The nomen agentis for ‹па́ндыцатнень› has the formative ‹-ыца-›, which does not seem to be found in Moksha but is quite productive in Erzian. (4) the word ‹со́вавта› 'make enter' has a causative formative in ‹-вт-›, which is represented as ‹-фт-› in Moksha. (5) The prohibitive auxiliary ‹Иля́› is typical of Erzia, whereas Moksha generally uses a different stem, e.g., ‹тят/тяк/...› (cf. Mordwinisches Wörterbuch 1990: 451, 1996: 2361) (6) Wrong vowel: the words ‹Тятя́ӥ› 'Father+Vocative', ‹мяне́ль› 'sky, heaven', and ‹ля́месь› 'the.name' all share one thing in common -- they have an /æ/ sound in the first syllable that correlates to an etymologically high vowel. Moksha /æ/ correlates with the etymologically low front vowel *ä, whereas some Erzian dialects also have /æ/, but it correlates to an etymologically high vowel *e, *i, *ü. (7) perhaps wrong consonants. The word ‹Се́ксъ› 'for this reason' is typically Erzian. In nearly all of the Mokshen dialects, /ks/ in front-vowel context drops the ‹k›, which would render ‹?Се́с ~ сяс› (cf. Feoktistow 1990: LVI, LXXXV). (8) The word ‹таӥтя́нсто› would indicate a palatalized second ‹т›, which is typical of Erzia. Whereas the Moksha cognate has a hard ‹т› in the modern literary language, there are many Mokshen locals with a palatal ‹т› (cf. Mordwinisches Wörterbuch 1996: 2211–2212). It is problematic, of course, to see that the form ‹таӥтя́нсто› is used where one would expect ‹шаӥтя́нсто›, i.e., there appears to be a misinterpretation that has taken place during copying, such that perhaps cursive Cyrillic ‹ш› has been replaced with cursive ‹т›. (9) The word ‹Кте́› 'bread' would allude to Erzian once the spelling has been reconstructed as ‹Кше́›, where once again there has been a misinterpretation of the Cyrillic ‹ш› as ‹т›. The vowel might more readily indicate Erzian origin. (10) the word ‹ши́нгесъ› should begin with ‹п›, but instead of ‹пингес› 'forever' the word has been copied as a nonexistent word. This could represent either of the languages. (11) The word ‹ва́номакъ› 'protect ME!' is an imperative form indicating a second person singular subject and a first person singular object. This form could represent either of the languages. Presumably, the form ought to have had a first person PLURAL object, i.e., ‹?ва́номизь/ваномиськ› in Erzian, and ‹?ваномасть› in Mokshen. Rueterjm (talk) 09:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)