“The But­ter­fly and the Bee” is the first selec­tion in Pētõr Damberg’s book Jemakīel lugdõbrān­tõz skūol ja kuod pierast (Moth­er Tongue Read­ing Book for School and Home; avail­able in the Library sec­tion of this site). I have re-writ­ten this sto­ry as accu­rate­ly as pos­si­ble uti­liz­ing the orthog­ra­phy used by Viit­so and Ernštre­its in their 2012 Livo­ni­an-Esto­ni­an-Lat­vian dic­tio­nary. Damberg’s orthog­ra­phy, while very sim­i­lar, does dif­fer in some key respects. For exam­ple, the mod­ern Livo­ni­an orthog­ra­phy marks half-long vow­els with a length mark, which Damberg’s orthog­ra­phy left the length of the­se vow­els unmarked (kalā vs. kala ‘fish’). Also, the cen­tral vow­el ȯ is dis­tin­guished in the mod­ern orthog­ra­phy, it is not marked with a unique let­ter in Damberg’s orthog­ra­phy (vȯlks vs. volks ‘would be’).

On the oth­er hand, Damberg’s spelling sys­tem still dis­tin­guish­es the front round­ed vow­els ö and y, though the­se were not dis­tin­guished in the speech of Livo­ni­an speak­ers at the time Damberg pub­lished this book, while in the mod­ern orthog­ra­phy the­se vow­els are replaced with e and i, respec­tive­ly (tȳö vs. tīe ‘work’). in addi­tion Damberg’s spelling sys­tem is based on his native West­ern Livo­ni­an dialect, where­as the mod­ern orthog­ra­phy is based on the East­ern Livo­ni­an dialect. To read about dif­fer­ences between Damberg’s orthog­ra­phy and the mod­ern sys­tem, see the Livo­ni­an Sounds sec­tion.

This sto­ry is intend­ed as an exam­ple of mod­ern Livo­ni­an in use. The Livo­ni­an is fol­lowed by my own free Eng­lish trans­la­tion and word-by-word analy­sis of the Livo­ni­an. The rewrit­ten ver­sion in the mod­ern Livo­ni­an orthog­ra­phy is given first, this is fol­lowed by the ver­sion writ­ten in Damberg’s orig­i­nal orthog­ra­phy, and then final­ly by my trans­la­tion of this text. Stød (‘) is marked in the vocab­u­lary list, but not in the text of the sto­ry itself, as it is not part of the stan­dard orthog­ra­phy.

Liepālind ja miedlinki (Mod­ern orthog­ra­phy)

“Kui kaj, ku vīmõ sadāb!” kītiz liepālind istõs līed allõ.

“Nǟ, väg­gi sūr kaj!” rõkān­diz miedlinki, kis istīz liepālindõn ležgõl.

“Až paldīņ vȯlks knaš āiga,” kītiz vel liepālind, “siz ma līn­daks pids nur­mõ ja nītõ mängõs.”

“Bet ma,” kītiz miedlinki, “ma līn­daks tīe jūrõ ja kuoŗŗõks kub­bõ pǟgiņ magḑizt mietā.”

Liepalind ja meḑļinki (Damberg’s orthog­ra­phy)

“Kui kai, ku vīmõ sad­ab!” kītiz liepalind istõs līed allõ.

“Nǟ, väg­gi sūr kai!” rõkan­diz meḑļinki, kis istiz liepalindõn ležgõl.

“Až paldiņ volks knaš āiga,” kītiz vel liepalind, “siz ma līn­daks pids nur­mõ ja nītõ mängõs.”

“Bet ma,” kītiz meḑļinki, “ma līn­daks tȳö jūrõ ja kuoŗŗõks kub­bõ pǟgiņ magḑist mieta.”

The But­ter­fly and the Bee

“How sad that it’s rain­ing!” said the but­ter­fly sit­ting under­neath the leaf.

“Yes, very sad!” said the bee, sit­ting near the but­ter­fly.

“If the weath­er were nice right now,” said the but­ter­fly, “then I would fly, play­ing over the fields and mead­ows.”

“But I,” said the bee, “I would fly to work and gath­er all the tasty hon­ey.”

Vocabulary

Abbre­vi­a­tions

adj. = adjec­tive, dat. = dative case, ger. = gerund, gen. = gen­i­tive case, inf. = infini­tive, n. = noun, nom. = nom­i­na­tive case, part. = par­ti­tive case, postp. = post­po­si­tion, pres. = present tense, pron. = pro­noun, rel. = rel­a­tiviz­er, sg. = sin­gu­lar, v. = verb