laivarisse lúnelinqe talalínen tinwelindon?

*in the blue-flowing sea with sails like stars?

The second phrase (lines 3-4) of the intermediate version of the Oilima Markirya poem (PE16/77). The first word is the locative plural of the noun laivar “ocean” followed by the compound lúnelinqe of the words lúne “blue” and linqe “flowing”. This is followed by the instrumental plural of tala “sail” and the adverbial plural form of tinwe “star”: tinwelindon = “like stars”.

The sense of the phrase resembles the third and fourth lines of the English translations of the poem LA2a-LA2b (PE16/68-9): “with/in the flowing sea upon wings like stars”. The locative phrase laivarisse lúnelinqe “✱in sea blue-flowing” is quite close: the English omits only the word “blue”. The instrumental form talalínen “✱with sails” is more loosely translated as “upon wings”; the ship’s sails are equated to wings in other versions of the poem as well.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> laivar-i-sse lúne-linqe tala-lí-nen tinwe-li-ndon = “✱sea-(plural)-in blue-flowing sail-(plural)-with star-(plural)-like”

Conceptual Development: The locative plural for “in seas” was first given as vainolisse, apparently a variant of the noun Vai “(outer) ocean” (PE16/78).

Element in

• Eq. Oilima Markirya (Intermediate Version)

Variations

• {vainolisse >>} laivarisse luunelinkve talaliinen tinwelindon ✧ PE16/077