Protolanguage Texts - The Sheep and the Horses, Etc.

[lpetrich]

In 1868, the German linguist August Schleicher was confident enough in his reconstruction of the ancestral Indo-European language to try to compose some text in it. The Wikipedia article Schleicher's fable gives several versions of it constructed by various linguists; when you compare them, you can see various differences of opinion. The Eclectorium: Indo-European Resources has a simplified version of the Lehmann-Zgusta version:

Owis Ekwôskwe

Gwrrêi owis, kwesyo wl@nâ ne êst, ekwôns espeket, oinom ghe gwrrum woghom weghontm, oinomkwe megam bhorom, oinomkwe ghmmenm ôku bherontm. Owis nu ekwomos ewewkwet: "Kêr aghnutoi moi ekwôns agontm nerm widntei". Ekwôs tu ewewkwont: "Kludhi, owei, kêr ghe aghnutoi nsmei widntmos: neer, potis, owiôm r wl@nâm sebhi gwhermom westrom kwrnneuti. Neghi owiôm wl@nâ esti". Tod kekluwôs owis agrom ebhuget.

[The] Sheep and [the] Horses

On [a] hill, [a] sheep that had no wool saw horses, one [of them] pulling [a] heavy wagon, one carrying [a] big load, and one carrying [a] man quickly. [The] sheep said to [the] horses: "[My] heart pains me, seeing [a] man driving horses". [The] horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see [this]: [a] man, [the] master, makes [the] wool of [the] sheep into [a] warm garment for himself. And [the] sheep has no wool". Having heard this, [the] sheep fled into [the] plain.

The German Wikipedia contains the likely original:

Das Schaf und die Pferde

[Auf einem Hügel,] ein Schaf, das keine Wolle mehr hatte, sah Pferde, eines einen schweren Wagen fahrend, eines eine große Last, eines einen Menschen schnell tragend. Das Schaf sprach: Das Herz wird mir eng, wenn ich sehe, dass der Mensch die Pferde antreibt. Die Pferde sprachen: Höre Schaf, das Herz wird uns eng, weil wir gesehen haben: Der Mensch, der Herr, macht die Wolle der Schafe zu einem warmen Kleid für sich und die Schafe haben keine Wolle mehr. Als es dies gehört hatte, bog das Schaf auf das Feld ein.

The Spanish, Italian, Latin, Polish, and Indonesian Wikipedias also have translations of that fable into those languages.

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A more recent linguist came up with a similar sort of text, The king and the god (Lehmann's version slightly rewritten):

Potis Deiwoskwe

Potis ghe êst. Sokwe ngn@tos êst. Sûnumwe wlnet. So ghuterm prket: "Sûnus moi gn@yotâm!" Ghuter nu potim weukwet: "Yegeswo ghi deiwos Werunom." Upo pro potiskwe deiwom sesore deiwomkwe yegto. "Kludhi moi, p@ter Werune!" So nu kmta diwos gwât. "Kwod wlnesi?" "Wlnemi sûnum." "Tod êstu," wewkwet lewkos deiwos. Potnî ghi sûnum gegone.

The King and the God

Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos". The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so", said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son.

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Some linguists have looked back even further than Indo-European, like Vladimir Illich-Svitych, who has done work on the Nostratic languages. He has composed some text in proto-Nostratic:

K'elhä wet'ei \ak'un kähla
k'atlai palhak'a na wetä
sa da ak'a eja älä
jak'o pele t'uba wete

Язык – это брод через реку времени,
он ведёт нас к жилищу умерших;
но туда не сможет дойти тот,
кто боится глубокой воды.

Jazyk – eto brod cherez reku vremeni,
on vedjot nas k zhilishchu umershikh;
no tuda ne smozhet doiti tot,
kto boitsja glubokoi vody.

Language is a ford through the river of time,
it leads us to the dwelling of those gone before;
but he cannot arrive there,
who fears deep water.