Kestnaʃ?

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

Feel free to ask your Parseltongue questions here! (As you will learn in Lesson 2, kestnaʃ is the Parseltongue word for 'question'/'questions').

Also, if you think you can answer a fellow student's question in this forum, you are strongly encouraged to reply to help them out! As per the syllabus, this can earn you some extra points!

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Glossing ... Lesson One

How would this be glossed?
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy poodle.

Thank you.

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

Tarna:

This sentence is a bit beyond the scope of the first lesson (we’ll go a bit deeper into sentence structure in Lesson 3 when we cover nouns and verbs). So first I’ll answer your question and explain why in detail.

Answer: This fox quick and brown that poodle lazy jump over.

Explanation in detail: The standard Parseltongue word-order can be roughly described as Subject -> Object -> Verb. So we’ll go over each of these separately.

The subject in English is “The quick brown fox”: this includes a demonstrative pronoun (“the”), a noun (“fox”), and two adjectives (“quick” and “brown”).
In Parseltongue, we would begin our sentence with a demonstrative pronoun: “this” for an object close at hand and “that” for an object further away. Assuming that the fox in question is right in front of us, we’re going to use “this”. Recall that in Parseltongue the subject is divided up as “demonstrative pronoun, then noun, then adjectives”. But since there are two adjectives, we need to join them with a conjunction: the appropriate English conjunction is “and”. (NOTE: You have already seen one Parseltongue conjunction, “or”, in the directions to the first homework. It means exactly what you think it does.)
So, the subject itself glosses as “This fox quick and brown”.

When a sentence would use a prepositional phrase in English, the preposition is treated as an adverb (and therefore lumped in with the verb) and the rest of the phrase is viewed as the object. So from the prepositional phrase in the sentence, “over the lazy poodle”, we have “the lazy poodle” as the object. Just as with the subject, you should be able to find a demonstrative pronoun (“the”), a noun (“poodle”) and an adjective (“lazy”). In Parseltongue, objects nearly always use the demonstrative pronoun that corresponds to the word “that” (the only exception you are likely to see is when the object is MUCH closer to you than the subject). Just as for the subject, the word order for this part of the sentence will go “demonstrative pronoun, then noun, then adjective” (only one adjective here so no need for conjunctions!).
Putting everything together, the object glosses as “that poodle lazy”.

All that is left is “jumped over”. “Jumped” is the verb, of course, and “over” is treated as an adverb (as discussed previously). The word order goes “verb -> adverb” so we would place “jumped” before “over”. But there’s another twist: verb tenses (which will also be covered in Lesson 3) work differently here than they do in English! In particular, all forms of present and past tense use the exact same form of the verb, which is also represented as the infinitive (a slightly different form is used for future tense; the future form also serves as an imperative form). So it is normally considered ‘best practice’ to gloss such forms with the infinitive word (without “to”) - i.e. “jump/jumps/jumped” would all be glossed as “jump”. This means the final part of the sentence would gloss as “jump over”.
(NOTE: Because Assignments 1 and 2 are given before verb tenses are taught, you will not be expected to get the verb tenses right in Parseltongue or glosses for full credit on those assignments.)

So, when you place the three elements in their appropriate order, the sentence that you expressed in English as “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy poodle” is glossed as...

This fox quick and brown that poodle lazy jump over.

NOTE ALSO: There are ways in Parseltongue to make it clear that a sentence is in the past tense; they usually involve specifying the time the sentence takes place. They are covered in... you guessed it... Lesson 3!

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Whoa.

Thank you, Will! That helps.

[Sparky McPup]

Translation
Hi I have two questions both have to do with translation. 1. What would 'those' be in Parseltongue? And 2. Can you explain how 'that' and 'this' translates into 'tasi' and 'fasi'? (P.S. If you already covered this, sorry I sound like an idiot. )

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

1: As you will learn in Lesson 4: number words take the place of "this" or "that" when you are talking about more than one thing. In other words, while you would say "this dog" or "that dog" if there was only one dog, you would simply say "three dogs" if there were three dogs. (If you don't know the exact number, you would either make a guess or use the word for "many", which is also covered in Lesson 4.)

2: Literally, "tasi" means "this" and "fasi" means "that"; in practice, "tasi" is used for things that are nearer to the speaker and "fasi" is used for things that are further away (in nearly all cases, you would use "fasi" instead of "tasi" for the object of a sentence. It's a subtle distinction, but you'll pick it up with practice!

Translation
Hi I have two questions both have to do with translation. 1. What would 'those' be in Parseltongue? And 2. Can you explain how 'that' and 'this' translates into 'tasi' and 'fasi'? (P.S. If you already covered this, sorry I sound like an idiot. )

[Sparky McPup]

Great thanks for the answer!

[Celeste Farhorn]

Is there a word in Paseltongue that roughly translates into fly in English? I'm practising my vocab and it's only just occurred to me to ask here

Thanks

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

Do you mean the noun (a small insect) or the verb (to move around in air)? Either way, the word does not exist in the lexicon... but you are free to 'discover' a Parseltongue word of your own with the appropriate meaning!

[Alondra Gonzalez]

I have a question about the first assignment. Do we have to answer everything in Parseltongue because I wasn't sure and I'm having a big problem with translating my sentences. Or do we just have to use yes and no in parseltongue and English to reword the statement?

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

I have a question about the first assignment. Do we have to answer everything in Parseltongue because I wasn't sure and I'm having a big problem with translating my sentences. Or do we just have to use yes and no in parseltongue and English to reword the statement?

In the "Sa or Ʃe?" section, the only part of your answer to each question that has to be in Parseltongue is the word "Sa" or "Ʃe". Your reworded statements can (and should) be in English, just as the original statements were.

[Carrie Warts]

Hi Prof, I have a question about the class.

In the additional resources, there's a Term Project, a Final and Legacy Assignments.

Do we have to do all of them?

Thanks in advance!

Keri & Fisli

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

Keri (and Fisli):

-The Final Exam is the ONLY required assignment for the entire course; you need to at least attempt it (and earn 150 points or more total for the class) for a quill.
-The Term Project is worth 30 points but not required for a quill. You can skip it if you like (but will have a lower score as a result).
-The Legacy Assignments should not be handed in at all. They are only there for your reference/additional practice (and in fact may refer to a slightly different form of the language than the one I currently teach.)