And so we all departed
And so we all departed for the cheese factory. Apparently they were making quite a big deal out of the opening - they had the town band there and everything. The members of that band were a charming combination of old and young; I wondered what their practices were like.
The factory itself was all shining and new, although it smelt dreadfully of milk half-way to cheese. We didn’t see the actual cheese-making section, but we did see the exhibit room dedicated to the finds from the Etruscan necropolis.
And then we proceeded to the real point of the whole expedition: the buffet in a large tent outside, with tables and chairs and a long board loaded with all sorts of cheeses. Not only that (the Italians do food properly!) but melon with cured ham, breads of all sorts, fruits, pizzas coming out of the outdoor ovens every few minutes and being snipped into strips, and gelato brought out at the end.
The band left off, but another group began. A team of folk-dancers, in full regalia, executing figures to the music of pipes! Imagine my delight in watching them, and recognizing every now and again elements that also cropped up in the contra-dancing I learned.
I suppose that they must be Italian folk-dancers, but their costumes looked surprisingly like what I would picture as German. Taking out my notebook, I began to write:
Ki stei, mirir thas sichores n’h'l apertor fareloc quessiche. Viases pindoadt mit isse gogets, thas aeds siroas, posodts cachtaodt n’dos survests brun, ards peddetos.
This is, in Kaetsprak "Here I am, looking at the dancers at the cheese factory opening. Waists cinched in white bodices, the girls spin, thumbs hooked in their brown vests, the men hop in place."
I wrote no more, for the writing of this caused me to fall into conversation with my companions at the dinner table regarding the language I was inventing. I explained to them the translations of their names, and they were quite charmed, if somewhat amazed. It still surprises me that not everyone should regard making a language as a perfectly natural, even habitual thing to do.
I wrote one last thing in the notebook on the way home, before I remembered that writing in the car roads such as these, whose curves not even the most expert driver could altogether soften, was not a good idea:
I was about to say that a more perfect day could not be imagined, but that is a bit tired and cliched, besides my imagination after so many days on the dig is in really top form. Such a day as this, though, was both a surprise and an utter delight.
In Italian today I created the progressive present active positive verb system for Mar-khâe-lo.
October 16th, 2002 at 9:37 pmPositive verbs? Do tell! Is there a separate word for the negative, then?
October 17th, 2002 at 5:10 amThere are positive, negative, and imperative verbs. No subjunctive - even though I like the subjunctive, I’m a bit bored with it. But like Japanese, there is indeed a distinction made between positive and negative verbs, though I’m not yet sure how it will manifest. I’ll probably come up with a system for it in Chinese today!
October 17th, 2002 at 1:19 pm