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Sunday, September 23, 2012

Grammatically, what is going on here: "Labatwa la ba a ap ou twasan dola." pg 31, "Rete! Kote Lamèsi!"

The first sentence, as it is written, does not make a lot of sense to me.

It looks as if it should be written this way:
Labatwa laba a ap pou twasan dola.
The slaugterhouse over there will go for $300.

Rete! Kote Lamèsi?
Wait a minute! Where's Lamèsi?
Haitian Creole ↔ English Reference, Look up Haitian Creole and English Words


4 comments:

  1. Oops! I left out a second "ba," but I am still confused. Here is the full context (a young man being offered a job):

    "Desandola lajan nan pòch ou kounyeya, epi ann arivan Jeremi, labatwa la ba a ap ba ou twasan dola anplis."

    [I understand it to be "Two hundred dollars in your pocket now, and then when you arrive, the slaughter house will give you another three hundred dollars." But I do not understand the second part grammatically.)

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  2. Your translation is correct.

    The mixup may be because of the misspelling of the word "laba". laba or laba a (with an article,) which means over there, down there, should be written in one word.

    "ann arivan" in the second sentence is borrowed from the French (en arrivant), it means "once you arrive", "once you get to", "when you get to" in Creole.

    anplis means more, additional

    Desan dola lajan nan pòch ou kounye a,
    Two hundred dollars in your pocket now,

    epi ann arivan Jeremi
    And when you get to Jeremi

    labatwa laba a ap ba ou twasan dola anplis.
    The slaughterhouse over there will give you three hundred dollars more.

    ReplyDelete
  3. oo. Yes, reading it as "laba" and the whole thing makes sense. I thought it was some crazy pile of articles/repeated verbs I had never seen before. Thank you!

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