nukedukekorea

[spare plinth]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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[wanton pivot]

even as a native speaker I don't really get it,
Literally,
"faire débuter" would mean : "to make things start" but it definitely sounds weird
"leur eût paru traduire" honestly without conntext I have no idea
"étriquée" means unnecessarely complicated

[mortal cosmos]

« débuter » means 'to start out' so maybe by saying « faire débuter » means that you should write this out with the historical tenses?

« leur eût paru traduire » is the subjunctive pluperfect which makes no sense honestly

need more context

[wanton pivot]

nvm étriquée means something lacking amplitude like it's a bit "shy" or "insufficient"

I should get my french level checked

[mortal cosmos]

J'ai trouvé le paragraphe

Pour les amérindiens et la plupart des peuples restés longtemps sans écriture, le temps des mythes fut celui où les hommes et les animaux n’étaient pas réellement distincts les uns des autres et pouvaient communiquer entre eux. Faire débuter les temps historiques à la tour de Babel, quand les hommes perdirent l’usage d’une langue commune et cessèrent de se comprendre, leur eût paru traduire une vision singulièrement étriquée des choses. Cette fin d’une harmonie primitive se produisit selon eux sur une scène beaucoup plus vaste ; elle affligea non pas les seuls humains, mais tous les êtres vivants.
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-etudes-rurales-2001-1-page-9?lang=fr

[oblique haven]

It's also the second form past conditional.

[mortal cosmos]

'For the Native Americans and most of the peoples [that had] remained without writing for a long time, the time of the myths was one where men and animals weren't really distinct from one another and [where they] could talk to one another. Making the historical times start off at the Tower of Babel, when men lost the use of a common language and ceased to understand one another, might've seemed to them to translate a vision singularly restricted from things. This end to a primitive harmony happened, according to them, in a scene/stage (I would translate this as 'world') [that is] a lot more vast; it struck not only humans but all living beings.'

I have no idea what this means 💀

[mortal cosmos]

yeah I realised that when I was writing the translation

[north glen]

guys

I think I'm more confused

"might've seemed to them to translate"?

about the faire debuter I get it now

[north glen]

actually do you have a word for somehing unnecessarily complicated? I always wanted to find this, I normally use "recherché"

[north glen]

"might've seemed to them convenient to translate"? @mortal cosmos

[mortal cosmos]

paraitre doesn't carry the sense of 'convenient'

[north glen]

sure but I mean in this context, this is what you meant?

[oblique haven]

Traduire here means express, convey, etc.

[north glen]

like manifest elseway

[wanton pivot]

you can use "tarabiscoté" but it's a quite goofy word and I can't think of anything else, "recherché" doesn't means that something is unnecessarily complicated but rather that something has been quite thought in advance

[north glen]

I mostly use it when someone says a joke that is extremely hard to get

because it's too niche or things like that

[wanton pivot]

yh using recherché in that way is funny

[prisma valley]

faire débuter = to make something start, faire functions as a causative
leur eût paru traduire = it had seemed to them that they translated
étriquée = past participle of étriquer: to narrow

[north glen]

I interpret it as in "if we take the tower of Babel as the reference point for the beginning of historic time"...

[oblique haven]

So the paragraphe is saying that giving the start of time at the Tower of Babel would've seemed to transmit the particularly limited/restricted idea of the world to the Natives.

It would've seemed to paint said idea in their eyes.

[north glen]

like make use of a dogma

state it as a dogma

ok now I get the "faire", so it's like "doing this, would lead to that"

also... "leur" here is like "to them"?

[prisma valley]

Yes

[north glen]

thanks C:

hey this text is huge, I hope it's not spam making questions in this channel for 4 hours

should I use this one thread instead?

[prisma valley]

What are you reading if I may ask?

[north glen]

someone posted the text

https://journals.openedition.org/etudesrurales/27

[prisma valley]

crazy cows lol

[north glen]

💀

[prisma valley]

Il y a environ trois ans, à propos de l’épidémie dite de la vache folle qui n’était pas d’actualité autant qu’elle l’est devenue aujourd’hui

[north glen]

a

*opens google translate

[prisma valley]

I can understand everything

[north glen]

good for you 👍 I mean I don't know why you mention this one part of the text

[prisma valley]

Mb

Well, it made me understand why the title is "La leçon de sagesse des vaches folles"

[north glen]

aaaaaaah

yeah I really didn't read the title and don't know what the text is about

[prisma valley]

It's about human views on animals and animal consumption basically

At least up to the point I've reached