In January 2011 Kennias Tia and I sat down to do some translation exercises. We did several verses commonly used in preaching here, as well as tackling some more complex songs that the Kamea people like to sing in Melanesian Pidgin. We still have much study to do in learning the language, but these exercises were a great help in both assessing and expanding our Kamea language work.
The “a” with the umlaut (two dots over it) sounds like “ah,” the other “a” sounds like “uh.” The apostrophe is a glottal stop, the sound you make (or don’t make) in the middle of the exclamation “uh-oh.” The “q” sound you make at the back of your throat.
Other than that, the language sounds nothing like English. 🙂
Jon’o 1:12 (John 1:12)
Täne’a qi’ya, ämä’ä oqänama qämeawänga ä’oi, ä’onga mäqa mänaqui’a ti hai häinga qa’na Nkot’oi’ya ime’a temaunaiwati. E, ämä’ä häinga qunu qam nhuta qai’ya taka’unta.
Qämnga 1:1 (Genesis 1:1)
Okä qämanga nime fi mhe’a täna, Nkot’o qäwa fa qoä fa qiyamakanqa ti.
(Kamea notes for linguists: Glottals/non-glottals in this exercise are subject to much more scrutiny, as are “y” and “w” glides. Also there are small changes in spelling; again their decision. Nothing is final; far from it. It is all a work in progress.)