4 – «Buhai bon e „Parmadani’s”»

 

Buhai bon e „Parmadani’s”

Desqes, bon e „Parmadani’s” vas sqouda pouvonjato. Ayoi sqovat vayole beqi aive pe auanaive desus. Desqou, yovas mansqouda poujaunvonjato.

Marianne, nuni veqi darsede, lesegadiva. Vapaurandi resot saqira e Parjia, yoyole: hamoja ye meyona e Qum, Tabriz e Isfahan. Busai, paurandi remí veqi saqir bus, e ge sediada e xayari darsede.

Marianne e ava hamodi nuri sarat gasta gosasi Saba go yosebouda. Aiveyo jaqi, sasi Saba vas sebouda e zoi e poumarvonjato boni. Busasi Saba rah vas sebouda hamojaboni giniole dibanda airebi. Buhai Saba nasuda — yos yopevada eher duvonda e meinu iyohata e zoi oher Teheran busai imasebovatta iher Melburna haunta asyuca passor oher Ariania.

Veqomaqaizet

Translation

Mornings, Parmadani’s opens at ten o’clock. It is open every day except Sunday afternoons. It closes at six o’clock in the evening.

bon, firm, business: bon e „Parmadani’s”, [the firm of] Parmadani’s; boni, to the business; hamojaboni, to the rug shop

vas sqouda, open (customarily): vas mansqouda, close (customarily)

 

pouvonjat, ten o’clock: pouvonjato, [at] ten o’clock

ayoi, its/his/her/their; avi, my/our; abui, your; ani, our (including the person addressed) (possessive adjectives)

sqovat, opening: ayoi sqovat vayole, its opening is

beqi, every

aive, day: auanaive, Sunday (also week)

pe, except

poujaunvonjat, six o’clock [lit. 18-hours: the 24-hour clock is employed]: poujaunvonjato, [at] six o’clock

Marianne, the other sales assistant, helps me. I am learning the names of Persian wares: rugs from Qom, Tabriz and Isfahan.

veqi, other, another: nuni veqi, the other; nuri veqi, another (emphatic)

darsede, sales assistant

lesegadi, help s.o.

resot, name (of things, not people)

saqir, thing: saqira e Parjia, of Persian ware[s] [lit. things]

yoyole, (a) is/are; (b) namely (it is customary to have a comma precede yoyole in this instance, followed immediately by a colon)

ye, from. When actual movement is meant, ye does not govern inflexion. However, when origin is meant (i.e., no actual movement), ye governs the genitive (cf., sebouda ye hamojabon, come from [i.e., out of] the rug shop > nunieni saqir sebouda ye hamojabona, this thing comes from the rug shop). The inflexion is routinely dropped before proper nouns, however (ye Qum, from Qom — either as actual movement or origin).

meyon, city: ye meyona e, from the city/cities of

And, I’m learning many other things, too, such as how to be a good sales assistant.

remí, many/much

e, like (e means “and” when linking names or things in a list)

ge, how: nu ge, how?; e ge = e jun e, such as (like) how

sediada e, be, become [lit. become like]

xayari, good (context indicates when “well” is meant)

Marianne and I had coffee with Mrs Saba when she arrived.

ava, I/me/we (if we, not including the person addressed); an, we (including the person addressed); abu, you; ayo, he/she/it/they (free-standing forms of subject pronouns)

hamodi, drink sth (here, translates “have”)

nuri, some or any (indefinite possessive adjective acting as partitive article)

sarat, coffee (beverage): (sou) sara, coffee-shrub; (cu) sara, coffee (raw product)

gasta, with (comitative)

gosasi, Mrs, Ms; busasi, Mr

Each day, Mrs Saba comes in at around eleven o’clock to the business. Mr Saba doesn’t come to the rug shop because he is too busy. The Sabas are rich — they like to spend four months or so in Teheran and return to Melbourne for the Iranian winter.

jaqi, each: aiveyo jaqi, each day

vas sebouda, come (vas indicates custom or habit)

e zoi e, around, about, approximately (e zoi after nouns, rendered as or so)

poumarvonjato, [at] eleven o’clock

rah, not/no

giniole, because

airebi, too, overly

dibanda, be busy

buhai Saba, the Sabas (buhai makes proper nouns plural)

nasuda, be rich

yos, both (may precede third person to strengthen idea of plural)

pevada eher, like to

duvonda e, spend, pass (time)

iyohat, month (iyohata [genitive] is used after numbers)

oher, at, in

imasebovatta, return, go back

haunta, for, during

[asyuca] passor[qa], winter[time]

Uzeut

Remarks

1. Desqes: Countable nouns of time may stand uninflected at the beginning of a sentence, marked off with a comma. Such nouns form the second part of such compounds as auanaive desqes, Sunday mornings, beqi auanaive desqou, every Sunday evening, etc. Such words are inflected in the locative if qualified: desqeso jaqi, [on] every/each morning

2. Initial capital letters are only employed for foreign proper nouns: words like bon, sasi or auanaive are not capitalised. (Similarly, tanerai, Taneraic; but Javant is capitalised according to English convention.)

3. Words such as bon and saqir are called classifiers. Classifiers are common before names of plants (sou), flowers (sula), fruits (pula), animals (vou), peoples (tou, jitou) and places (but meyon, city, although operating as a classifier, does not behave like the foregoing classifiers; viz., free-standing prefixes). Inflection occurs at the end of the compound: eg, bon hamoja, the rug business; bon hamojá, of the rug business (not *bona hamoja). NB, a rug shop is a hamojabon; “the rug business” may also be rendered as darhamojabonqa (darhamojabon is a rug-seller).

4. E is multi-functional. The ligative e must be used to link classifiers with foreign proper nouns. As all loan-words, i.e., foreign proper nouns, are unassimilable, the classifier is inflected: e.g., meyona e Qum, of Qom (not *meyon e Quma). If a classifier is not used, a free-standing preposition must be used (aher Qum, of Qom).

5. Although gender is not differentiated in radicals (levis), the prefixes go– (female) and bu– (male) may be attached to nouns of primary relationship (ma, father or mother: parent(s) > goma, mother; buma, father), honorifics (sasi, Mr(s), Ms > gosasi, M[r]s; busasi, Mr) and animals (beiji, cat > gobeiji, she-cat; bubeiji, tom-cat). It may be further prefixed to the dar– prefix, showing professional agency (budar– or godar-), but it does sound a little odd, as “female actor” sounds a little odd in English.

6. Subject-Object Free-standing Pronouns________

va– –va ava I; me/we, us (exclusive)

an– –an an we; us (inclusive)

bu– –bu abu you

yo– –yo ayo he, she, it, they; him, her, it, them

7. Free-standing pronouns are used in conjunction with proper nouns: Nicole e ava, Nicole and I/me. They are also used with the copula vayole: ayo vayole sabri zon, it is a big room.

8. Nuri, a (an)/some/any and nunieni, this/these are demonstrative adjectives (nuni, that/those). They are often used like articles in English. Nuri is used before nouns of quantity (especially food or drink): aibandi nuri pula beden, eat  or have an apple/some apples. (Pula is a classifier for fruit; beden by itself could refer to the tree.)

9. Cardinals: marnu (1), yabnu (2), cannu (3), meinu (4), sunu (5), yannu (6), auannu (7), jaunnu (8), sautnu (9), pou (10) (when counting on fingers, for example, the –nu ending for numbers 1–9 is dropped): Mar yab can mei su yan auan jaun saut pou! One two three four five six seven eight nine ten!