Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Toúījāb Kīkxot

Here's a translation for the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human rights. The first set of translators notes have to do with the translation itself, the second set more with the theory behind why I did things. Btw, check out this site

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Toúījāb Kīkxot:
Khōhim úīkmo¹ vit akhxōm qal cōroj² dumlūzō ūmpa lipha tāsah ī cāyap³ vit fnoxi⁴. Cānu mamaxīrosasā⁵ mocīph⁶ ī ahrōsh ⁷ ūmpa ziūsiwk⁸ olúīg-alúag zāraz dūchhawāx.
IPA:
[ˈk'oːʔɪm wiːkŋɔ ʕɪt ək'ʃoːm q'əl tsoːrɔdz dʊmluːtʃoː uːmpə lɪp'ə tɑːsəʔ iː tsɑːjəp ʕɪt ħnɔʃɪ. Tsɑːnʊ məməʃiːrɔsəsɑː mɔtsiːp' iː əʔroːs' uːmpə tʃjuːsɪɹk ɔlwiːg-əlwəg tʃɑːrətʃ duːts'əɹɑːʃ]
Translators notes

1 The word literally means "human, person, mankind", but has a connotation of "civilized people" (that is, only their civilization). Using "úīkmo" instead of "vīggo" (human, tribe, people, mankind, barbarian etc) reflects their values that they are superior and have greater rights compared to everyone else.

2 Úīkmo Kīkxot find the idea of people being born "free" strange. Instead the phrase "enter the world" is used. Means the same thing, but fits their sensibility better, since the verb born usually has reference to a mother, but there is none here.

3 Literally means "entitlement". Úīkmo Kīkxot don't have the same views as us regarding rights. People can feel that they deserve something, but those are based on merit, wealth and caste, not ideals.

4 Means the same, equal or even balanced. While this construction is perfectly acceptable, xenophobic Úīkmo Kīkxot would probably interpret this to mean that each person's rights (entitlements) are equal or in accordance with their individual dignity (honor, standing) and not that all people have the same rights and dignity.

5 The habitual/frequentive/gnomic aspect is used to emphasize that people are always given the following things. Takes a locative applicative suffix to show that the subject is the recipient, not the patient. While no agent is specified, the ditransitive is still used and people can understand from context that the following nouns are patients, not agents.

6 Literally means "mind, place of thoughts" but can mean reason too

7 Literally means "doing righteous acts" but like many verbal nouns, has a more abstract meaning of "knowing what is right" or conscience

8 Means "must" but uses the imperative prefix to soften it to "should". This shows that pragmatically the imperative prefix makes orders more polite and in the case of an imperative verb, still makes it more polite


A) The IPA represents the standard dialect as I have it so far. But I may add more assimilations/sadhi effects/liaison and the like so don't take it as the final say.

B) So I was looking at different translations of the UDHR while I was doing this (having already decided that I didn't want to use the word for birth (see the note above)) and it ends up that Sundanese seems to use a similar phrasing: "Sakumna jalma gubrag ka alam dunya...". My Sundanese is pretty shabby and my dictionary is still in Ethiopia, but gubrag ka alam dunya means "[something] to the natural world" and I'm pretty sure gubrag means "enter". So I'm not the only person to come up with this sort of way for translating it.

C) You may get the feeling that this culture is a culture of lawyers.  Well, it really is. Their religion's big schism is over the interpretation of a religious holiday. Lawyering and loopholes is built into their national being. Just look at their views on slavery. And a translation of a document like this would definitely be written by lawyers. So that's why there's lots of weasel words and ambiguous phrasings that they can take advantage of. "Oh yes, we treat all civilized people in balance with their deserved honor. In fact, we are the most humane civilization around."

D) Caste is a big deal for the Úīkmo Kīkxot. Of course they would write the translation to fit that, rather than trying to change their culture.

E) In retrospect, I think that the verb mamaxīrosasā should probably be mamaxīrosaī (which in turn would be probably pronounced something like [məmʃiːrɔsiː] but I haven't figured out all the assimilation stuff yet) since I've really shifted to having the benefactive also be a recipient marker and the locative being more only for physical locations. Especially since it benefits the person getting reason. So I may eventually change this up.

F) Verbal nouns probably make up one of the most ambigious, least consistent, hardest to translate and most fun form for TbKt. I really haven't done enough with them, showing all the different paths that things can take for it.

G) I thought for a long time on how to express "should". I already had an imperative, and in normal speech probably only the imperative would be used, I think, but in something more formal like this there had to be something seperate. So it made some interesting effects on the pragmatics of commands, which is cool.

H) I always love when one of my reduplications gets used. I had so much fun thinking them up and figuring out how they'd be use. It was actually one of the big things, in my opinion, that help TbKt move away from its Indonesian and Arabic roots.

I) In retrospect, it might be best that olúig takes the instrumental suffix, which would empahsize that the manner is a (compound noun) and the subject is using that noun to do the verb. Also, I'm not sure if the adjective agreement is necessary here since it could be a compound noun.

J) Conjunctions in TbKt (the one concession I give to logic!) would make for an interesting article. But I think I want to get some profiles and work on other languages up first. But maybe not, because the patient is marked already...it's all confusing. Maybe a preposition should be added.

As for the literal translation, it would be something like "All civilized beings which enter the world are independent and they have honor and entitlements which are equal. They are given a mind and sense of good doing and should treat each other in a brotherly manner."

I should do a gloss but I'm real lazy so this is good for now.