A quote from Aurelian philosophy

I’ve posted this over on the ZBB recently, but I’m re-publishing it here in order to show off Carsten Becker’s new interlinear gloss plugin!

A bit of general introduction first. Aurelia is a land in my conworld lying between Truria (to the west) and the Eneian sea (to the east). Trevecian lands lie to the north, while Aucenia lies to the south. Aurelia is a semi-theocratic state in the sense that social and political power is essentially balanced between the priesthood (which controls most wealth and agricultural resources) and the nobility (controlling the army), with a strong merchant class. Its language, Aurelian, is related to High Eolic, but the resemblances are pretty distant.

What I have below is a quote from an Aurelian philosopher named Talèron, probably the most famous exponent of the “Namelian School”, which was an atheist philosophy in the second half of the 12th century that promoted an ethics of independent action and responsibility, as well as being quite outspokenly against slavery. Unsurprisingly, these views were quite controversial, and several philosophers belonging to this school of thought were executed (including Talèron).

Kaymanemré nayèm şanenkard aşikiç men –
atè-şan balagaç yorinir men sindaçis amşé.

“All shall be judged by what they do, not by what others judge for them to be right to do.” (Talèron, 1159)

Recording: all_shall_be_judged.mp3

Interesting points:

1) The verb ‘to judge’ gets an inverse marker, since pro-dropped arguments are always lower on the inverse hierarchy. This is despite the fact that nan ‘everyone’ is marked as Patient and Definite, since there is no reason it should be – definiteness marking (which only affects patients) is entirely optional.

2) Relative clauses are marked by a relativizer prefix on an inflected pronoun, and are internally headed (although this isn’t necessarily in evidence in these sentences).

3) sindaçis amşé is an example of a ‘benefactive’ construction with the first element in the essive and the second in the sociative. It is often used in the sense ‘meant for X’ or ‘incumbent upon X’, e.g. yaşnardis kèyené (suitor.ESS daughter.SOC) ‘the daughter’s suitor / fiancé’.

And here’s a translation into High Eolic! See if you can spot the cognates – there should be around 4 unique ones (not counting bound morphemes):