A Poem and the Pictograph in Earth Language (EL) - April
'04 -
"Yellow Butterfly" by Reiko Nakagawa 短歌中川禮子作「もんきてふ」
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This is an EL (Earth Language)
experimental page to enjoy
the image of a haiku/short poem originally in English/Japanese.
When you can't see the Japanese parts, please
don't mind and just skip those parts.
地球語の文字や文字絵を用いて詩的表現や翻訳を試みる実験のページです。
Thank you very much,
Ms. Akiko Sueyoshi in Tokyo. She has sent a donation for developing
the EL typing tool (it's coming very soon); also presented a Tanka
book "A Spring of Thyme"(Publisher: Yume-kobo 2003) by Reiko
Nakagawa , for this corner. This book has a nice English translation
by William I. Elliott. I'm happy to share one of these Tanka with
you.
Japanese usually doesn't make a clear distinction between single and
plural as well as EL. Although the English verse took "a butterfly," I chose
several butterflies in the pictograph, because the kind of butterfly wasn't
alone in my old memory in Japan. I tried to imagine that "my" heart beating
when waiting for "your letter" in the mid-spring with a full bloom tree.
I hope girls still have this kind of excitement, even in the email era.
東京の末吉暁子さん が、地球語エディタ開発へのご寄付と、このコーナーのために
中川禮子さんの短歌集『麝香草』
（夢工房 2003）をお贈りくださいました。暁子さん、どうもありがとうございます！
William I. Elliott 氏による英訳つきのこの本から、今月は、中川さんの春爛漫の短歌をシェアさせていただきます。
もんきてふ、英訳では１頭になってるので、ちょっと迷いましたが、私の日本でのふるい記憶にしたがって、近づいたり離れたりしながら群れているもんきてふをイメージしました。満開の花の木に舞う蝶を見ながら「君が文」を待つときめきを、こんなふうに地球語にしてみましたが、いかがでしょうか。ピクトグラフの蝶、凧みたい？ケイタイ時代の少女たちも、こんなときめきを感じていますか？
Tanka by Reiko Nakagawa; Translated by William I. Elliott:
A yellow butterfly
flutters
under the tree.
The postman
picks out your letter.
Japanese Original:
ひらりひらりもんきてふ来る木の下に郵便やさん君が文選る
EL Translation:
Symbols in this pictograph:
: butterfly (蝶)
: tree (木)
: you/your あなた （の）
{
color,
out}(the color looked like
coming out): yellow (黄色)
{ 
the main parts of 
insect,
sheet}(as a picture-like-character): butterfly (蝶)
: d-verb symbol to form a verb (動詞符)
{ 
sky,
}(the shape of wings in the sky;
a fundamental character): wing(s) (翼)
: move
動き
(move and move with the wings of the subject of the sentence): flatter
(vi.) (Plural symbols for a movement shows repeating the movement)
I expressed this way using only fundamental symbols to show the feeling
of the original expression, "Hirari-Hirari" :
(翼でひらひら動く （なんらかの動きを表す文字が複数並ぶときは、その動きのくり返しを意味する）ひらりひらりの感じをだそうと、あえて基礎的な文字のみで表現しました。)
For
more detail of verb, please refer to
the verb section.
{
preposition, 
down/below}: under
(preposition) (～の下に（で）
: that (in the topic) (それ・その)
{
, 
plant}: tree (木)
(as its single
form): the grammatical symbol to show the following words are the subject
of this sentence (後続語が主語だと示す文法記号)
{
(see below), 
go}: mail (not email) (郵便)
{
{
receive and
go} (carry), 
person}: postman/mail-carrier (運ぶ人・配達人)
: e-verb
symbol to show that the subject makes something the following situation
何かを、これに次ぐ語の(状態にする意味で動詞を構成)
{
out from the bag in this case}:
discharge/coming out from a kind of container (排出、出る状態)
: the
grammatical symbol to show the object that works as its e-verb shows
(次の対象をE動詞が示す状態にすると示す文法記号)
... : the subject take out ... (of his bag) (... を取り出す)
{{
to form a pronoun,
front}}: you/your (あなた（の）)
{ 
{ 
show, 
recognition} message, 
cover/covered}:
envelope with message/a letter (封書)
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