Haiku and the Pictograph in EL, "ebb tide" by Carla Sari - May 2008 -


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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, or see here to view Japanese.
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。

Before dawn on a beach, a round thing shines.
The author’s long shadow approaches it.
It is a fresh jellyfish just left on the sand by the ebb,
making its whole body a large lens to take the moonbeams.
In these nervous days of the world, I’m glad to meet this calm
and nice moment between the moon, the jellyfish and her.

Continuously from last month, this haiku is from Haiku Harvest Vol. 6, No. 1 - Spring & Summer 2006
edited by Denis M. Garrison; and this author, Carla Sari’s page there. She lives in North Carlton, Australia.
It’s interesting: we write, “sea-moon” in Japanese Kanji for Kurage/jellyfish.
Sari’s feeling must be quite universal, I guess, although the word, "steals" is unique.
In Earth Language, I tried to compound an ideogram for jellyfish
as the combination of “sea-round-animal”: adding “animal” helps to recall an animal name;
also “round” is a part of “the moon"; and don't you feel a jellyfish through the total shape?
Of course the scientific name will come later.

夜明け前の薄暗い砂浜にひときわ輝くもの・・
自分の長い月影と一緒に近づくと、それは、引き潮に残されたみずみずしいクラゲ。
体中でレンズになって、西に傾いた月の光を自分のものにしているのでした。
落ち着かない世情のこのごろ、宇宙とクラゲと自分の
こんな静かな対話に出合えてうれしいです。
先月に引き続きHaiku Harvest Vol. 6, No. 1 - Spring & Summer 2006の中から、
今回はオーストラリアのCarla Sariさんのページの俳句を訳させてもらいました。

日本語漢字でもクラゲを「海月」と書きますね。
Sariさんのsteals(盗む)はユニークですが、クラゲと月の取り合わせは普遍的なのかもしれません。
地球語でクラゲを表す1文字には「海・円・動物」の組み合わせを仮にあてました。
動物であることをまず知らせ、円は月の文字の一部でもあります。
なんとなく全体でクラゲに見えてきません?
学名としては後にもっと科学的に考えていただくとしましょう。

The original haiku by Carla Sari

ebb tide
the jellyfish steals
the moonbeams


The Japanese translation
引き潮に クラゲは月の光を盗む

The EL translation

The symbols in the pictograph:
: the moon (月), : I/me (私), : wave (波)

The symbols in the translation:
: the preposition mark to show the following word modifies the front word or the predicate of that sentence.
You can compound it with a basis for time or place too; and here I used the basis only, meaning both ways.
(後続語が前または述語を修飾することを示す前置符)
{{ the sea, flowing} tide, inward}: ebb tide (海の流れが打ちに向かうことを示して、引き潮)
: the indicator of the subject of a sentence when the subject is in the middle. (文のトップにない主語を示すマーク) 
{ round, sea, animal} (also by the total shape): jellyfish (象形でもあり、クラゲ)
: the grammatical mark to form a verb (動詞を構成する動詞符)
{ behind (without showing), { seek, receive} catching/getting}: stealing (盗み)
: steal (vt.) (盗む)
: the grammatical mark to indicate an accusative case of a d-verb (他動詞の対象を示すマーク、~を)
(English doesn't need this and ; but EL needs them because of the free sequence grammar for global usage.)
{sometimes like or }: the moon (円や半円に変化するもので、月)
{ light, line}: beam (光線)
EL doesn't fuss about single or plural. When necessary, you can compound on top of an ideogram to show it's plural.

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