Re: VMs: Is it a human language? (was Moot points, getting long)

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

6/08/2004 11:32:12 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


>It might be that "qokedy qokedy" and "qokedy" are two distinct words which 
>happen to both occur on that page. To give an example in Tok Pisin, "i gat 
>planti sipsip longlong long dispela sip" means "there are many crazy sheep on 
>this ship".

Nice example.

They don't even have to be different words. This describes the shambles
that is my collection of books: di rumahku ada buku-buku di mana-mana, 
di kamar-kamarnya ada buku-buku. Buku-buku itu...

I am sure you could construct similarly repetitive sentences in...
Sumerian! Yes, Sumerian. Sumerian used reduplication to express:

1. the plural
2. the superlative
3. some verbal aspects

Oh, and here, I just remembered a snippet of a legend told me
by one of my Sakao informants 30 years ago: 

mököökölkölnes mökölkölGjøpr

Meaning: he fished for a long long time, he did not catch any.

Which you could express thus in Bislama:

Hem i lukluk fis, luk luk luk luk luk, ko ko ko ko ko ko, nokat.




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