The twenty-fifth text, and the first written as directions to a stranger. The phrasebook has the fragments — Hotel nali?, Go yamin — and no page has ever put them together into somebody actually finding a place.
It was written for two reasons. Commands stand in seven texts, level with comparison at the floor of the exercise table, and directions are made of them. And text 24 found that nothing can be near anything: the language has three prepositions and none of them is beside. A page about where things are is the hardest test that gap can be given, and a second witness is worth more than a second argument.
Written at 300 roots, with no grammar beyond Lesson 26.
— Pardon. Hospital nali?
— Hospital baid. Yu anda o yu go in auto?
— Mi anda.
— Ok. Anda tarik ini. Go yamin in ponte.
— Ponte cang?
— Ya. Sungai sub.
— Mi kan market kabir sasa.
— Hao. Hospital baid dari market.
— Berapa tempo?
— Des momen agar yu anda hayai.
— Posta nali?
— No go por posta. Posta kiri, hospital yamin.
— Mi no faham. Sema tena, plis.
— Anda tarik cang. No go kiri. Go yamin.
— Ok. Mersi!
— Hospital kabir aur putih. Yu saufa kan ta.
Line by line
| Amadunia | English |
|---|---|
| — Pardon. Hospital nali? | — Excuse me. Where is the hospital? |
| — Hospital baid. | — The hospital is far. |
| Yu anda o yu go in auto? | Are you walking or going by car? |
| — Mi anda. | — I’m walking. |
| — Ok. Anda tarik ini. | — Ok. Walk this road. |
| Go yamin in ponte. | Turn right at the bridge. |
| — Ponte cang? | — Is the bridge long? |
| — Ya. Sungai sub. | — Yes. The river is below. |
| — Mi kan market kabir sasa. | — I see a big market now. |
| — Hao. Hospital baid dari market. | — Good. The hospital is far from the market. |
| — Berapa tempo? | — How much time? |
| — Des momen agar yu anda hayai. | — Ten moments if you walk fast. |
| — Posta nali? | — Where is the post? |
| — No go por posta. | — Do not go to the post. |
| Posta kiri, hospital yamin. | The post is left, the hospital right. |
| — Mi no faham. Sema tena, plis. | — I don’t understand. Say it again, please. |
| — Anda tarik cang. No go kiri. Go yamin. | — Walk the long road. Do not go left. Go right. |
| — Ok. Mersi! | — Ok. Thank you! |
| — Hospital kabir aur putih. | — The hospital is big and white. |
| Yu saufa kan ta. | You will see it. |
What directions are made of
Seven of the twenty-eight sentences are commands, and three of the seven are negative. No go kiri and No go por posta carry as much of this page as Go yamin does — a direction is as often about where not to turn — and no other text has needed the negative command more than once.
The rest is the question rule doing the other half. Hospital nali?, Posta nali?, Berapa tempo? — the question word stands where the answer will stand, so the answer is the question with one word swapped, and a stranger who learns the question has learned the answer.
Gaps
Nothing is beside anything, for the second time. Sungai sub says the river is below and stops there; the sentence a speaker wants is the river is below the bridge, and sub cannot take a noun any more than dekat could in text 24. This page had to put the bridge in one sentence and the river in the next and let the reader join them. The rule page records it as a missing slot rather than a missing word, and this is the second text to run into it in two days — the first by accident, this one on purpose.
There is no word for a corner, a turn or a crossing. Go yamin in ponte is “go right at the bridge”, and a bridge is the only landmark this page can use because the language has one — the house and the city are the two thinnest domains on the checklist. Directions in any city are given by corners.
No word for far that is not also a judgement. baid is far, and Hospital baid is the first thing the stranger is told; ten moments has to do the work of saying how far, because a distance the language can name does not exist. Recorded with the other things the writing has asked for.
And ten moments is not a time. momen is a moment and des momen is ten of them, which is a number of an unmeasured thing. The clock has no word and neither has the minute, so the only honest answer to how much time is a guess dressed as a count.
Roots used
45 of 300.