Stālāg Corpus

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

“One of Tlön’s schools of thought goes as far as to deny time: they reason that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality except as present hope, that the past has no reality except as present memory. Another school of thought asserts that all time has already passed, and our life is only a crepuscular remembrance or reflection, undoubtedly falsified and mutilated, of an unrecoverable process.”

“Tlon-skāsō kwentūbebba bār ye jdabuzo ddur kos beatān lē: jubnarattaso attūr gidŏr nu, hĕkr gzīz nurr attūrō ēdormō zlo bekku, himmoz gzīz nurr attūrō tĕpezemō zlo bekku. Nīt kwentūbeb jukappasos ddurō ås zdannĕ himmot na mallun yōtr izĕ ssēner tĕpezm hŏ tĕpĕskiz nu, līmåkkil tāk huezim na nugzim, tĕzmagirrezyō ksupō ul.”

Jorge Luis Borges, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, in Ficciones

Comments

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is one of the great writers of all time, not only in Argentina but in the whole world. He was first and foremost a poet, but he wrote many short stories, dealing with diverse but recurrent topics. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is the story of Borges himself as a participant and witness of the discovery of Tlön, a fictional world created by an ancient secret society. Borges quickly dismisses the fantastic aspects of the physical Tlön to concentrate on the nature of its people, of the thoughts and philosophies and languages of its people, which are unlike any of those on Earth.

Interlinear gloss

Tlon-skāsō kwentūbebba bār ye
Tlön=land-O schools_of_thought-O one A

jdabuzo ddur kos beatān lē:
reach-3s time P deny-CMB up_to

jubnarattaso attūr gidŏr nu,
reason-PLV-3s-SCL present indefinite COP

hĕkr gzīz nurr attūrō ēdormō zlo bekku,
future actuality COP.NEG present-O hope-O as-O except

himmoz gzīz nurr attūrō tĕpezemō zlo bekku.
past actuality COP.NEG present-O memory-O as-O except

Nīt kwentūbeb jukappasos ddurō ås zdannĕ himmot
other school_of_thought say-3s-SCL time-O whole already pass-3s-PRF

na mallun yōtr izĕ ssēner tĕpezm hŏ tĕpĕskiz nu,
and our life only dusk=like memory or reflection COP

līmåkkil tāk huezim na nugzim,
undoubtedly AUT falsified and maimed

tĕzmagirrezyō ksupō ul.
unrecoverable-O process-O it

Notes

1. Note the presence of the subclause mark ju- (glossed SCL) in the discoursive verbs. This mark shows that the object of the verb is a whole subclause and not a noun phrase.
2. Note the root element himm-, appearing in himmoz ‘past’ and himmot ‘it has passed’, working more or less as in English. The root is verbal and inherently mediopassive/stative; the verb could very well be translated ‘it is passed’, ‘it is gone’ (the causative could be used for the meaning of ‘killing time’ -- i. e. making time pass).
3. The particle tāk, glossed as AUT, is the so-called ‘authoritative attitudinal’. It serves to give firmness and seriousness to the things spoken about, in this case the adverb līmåkkil ‘undoubtedly’.
4. The pseudo-pronoun ul is a resumptive, used when the normal word order is changed; in this case it represents the 'crepuscular memory or reflection' mentioned before. It is rare, even in literary use, to precede a noun phrase with very long oblique subordinates, so the oblique phrase is usually removed and placed after its head, which is finally resumed by ul.