Friulian language series: Gjenesi 2:4-14, paradîs dal Eden

You will now continue your study of the Friulian language through the book of Genesis by examining verses 4-14 of the second chapter, where the subject is il paradîs dal Eden (paradise of Eden), also called il zardin dal Eden (garden of Eden). All three posts pertaining to chapter 2 can be found here.

If you are arriving on this site for the first time, begin your study of the Friulian language here.

Read Gjenesi 2:4-14

To read the Friulian text of the Bible associated with the notes below or listen to its audio, visit Bibie par un popul and consult Gjenesi 2:4-14. An archived version of the text can be found here.

Verset 4

Il Signôr Diu found in this verse translates as the Lord God.

You have encountered the feminine singular cheste before, which you find again now at the beginning of this verse; it means this. E je cheste la storie means it is this the history (that is, this is the history).

Now is a good time to review the four forms of the Friulian word for this: chest (masculine singular), cheste (feminine singular), chescj (masculine plural), chestis (feminine plural). The examples below use the masculine nouns il paîs (country) and il ream (kingdom), and the feminine nouns la peraule (word) and la robe (thing).

chest paîs
this country
chescj reams
these kingdoms

cheste peraule
this word
chestis robis
these things

Cuant che means when.

cuant che a forin creâts
when they were created

To say, for example, he created, you now know that Friulian can express this using either the passât sempliç or the passât prossim:

al creà
al à creât

To say it was, these same two tenses can be used. You have already encountered how to say it was using the passât prossim, which you will recall is al è stât. Using the passât sempliç, it is al fo.

al fo
al è stât

To say the passive it was created, you can now express this two ways:

al fo creât
al è stât creât

As for the plural they were, this can be expressed as:

a forin
a son stâts

To say the passive they were created, you can now express this as:

a forin creâts
a son stâts creâts

The passât sempliç is especially a written form, with colloquial usage preferring the passât prossim.

Verset 5

The Friulian expression for there is is al è; negated, it becomes nol è (there is not).

al è chi un frutut (Zuan 6:9)
there is here a child
(there is a child here)

nol è nuie di gnûf sot dal soreli (Qoelet 1:9)
there is nothing new under the sun

You may wish to review the present indicative of the verb jessi.

Using the imperfet indicatîf, al è becomes al jere (there was) and nol è becomes nol jere (there was not).

nol jere nissun sterp
there was not any shrub
there was no shrub

nol jere om
there was not [any] man
there was no man

Ancjemò means yet. Nissun means no, none. Nol jere ancjemò nissun sterp, then, means there was not yet any shrub; there was still no shrub.

You also encounter nissun in its feminine form in this verse: nissune sorte di jerbe (no sort of grass), where the Friulian word for sort used here is la sorte. Here are more examples of nissun:

nissune pôre
no fear

nissun libri
no book

nissun paîs
no country

nissune femine
no woman

The expression dâ fûr translates literally as to give out, to give forth, but you will understand it here as meaning to come forward, to sprout, to germinate. The past participle of is dât.

al à dât fûr
al veve dât fûr
it sprouted
it had sprouted

The verb plovi means to rain; fâ plovi, then, means to make it rain, to cause to rain.

il Signôr Diu nol veve fat plovi su la tiere
the Lord God had not made it rain on the earth

The expression lavorâ la tiere means to work the earth, to till the ground. In this verse, you encounter al lavoràs, which is the masculine, third-person singular, coniuntîf imperfet.

l’om al lavore
the man works
l’om al à lavorât
the man worked

nol è om che al lavori
there is not [any] man who works
nol jere om che al lavoràs
there was not [any] man who worked

Verset 6

Recall that the expression vignî fur means to come forth, to come out. In this verse, you encounter fâ vignî fûr, meaning to make come forth, to make come out (that is, to bring out). You also find the verb bagnâ, meaning to wet, to soak.

Both and bagnâ are found in this verse in the masculine, third-person singular of the coniuntîf imperfet as al fasès and al bagnàs.

Dulintor means surrounding, around: il teren dulintor (the surrounding ground).

Verset 7

Recall that il stamp means stamp, form: fâ il stamp dal om (to make the form of the man; that is, to form the man).

L’argile is a feminine noun meaning clay, mud. When cun (with) comes into contact with a feminine noun using the definite article l’, it becomes cu l’, as you find in this verse: cu l’argile. Review how Friulian prepositions contract with definite articles.

The verb soflâ means to blow. La buse is the Friulian for hole; the Friulian for nose is il nâs. Tes busis dal nâs, then, means into the nostrils (literally, into the holes of the nose). You will recall that in combines with lis to form tes. What God blew into the nostrils was une soflade di vite (breath of life).

The verb deventâ means to become.

l’om al deventà une creature vivent
man became a living creature

Verset 8

The masculine noun il zardin means garden. God placed it in Eden: tal Eden. In Friulian, the four cardinal points are nord, sud, est, ovest (north, south, east, west).

In this verse, you do not find est but soreli jevât, which also means east. The Friulian for sun is il soreli; jevât (risen) is the past participle of the verb jevâ, meaning to rise. The opposite of soreli jevât is soreli bonât (west), where bonât is the past participle of the verb bonâ, meaning to set.

You will recall the meaning of the noun la bande, which is side. You first encountered it in Gjenesi 1:4, where you read: [Diu] al metè la lûs di une bande e il scûr di chê altre.

de bande di soreli jevât
towards the east, eastwards

Here are examples of how you might use nord, sud, est, ovest:

lâ a nord
to go north

a est il cîl al è nulât
to the east the sky is cloudy

viazâ bande est
to travel towards the east

une perturbazion di ovest
a disturbance from the west

la cueste sud de mont
the south side of the mountain

In the examples above, the definite article is not used with the cardinal points because they refer to general directions; however, in the examples that follow, the definite article is used because the cardinal points are used as nouns referring to defined geographic areas:

il nord dal Friûl
the north of Friuli

un paîs dal est
a country in (of) the east

il Portugal al è tal ovest de Europe
Portugal is in the west of Europe

Northern Italy and Southern Italy can be referred to as il Nord Italie and il Sud Italie.

i problemis dal Nord Italie
the problems of Northern Italy
(il probleme, problem)

l’emigrazion dal Sud Italie
the emigration from Southern Italy

You will find another example of soreli jevât in verse 14. Immediately below are two more examples of it, the first taken from Ezechiel 46:1:

la puarte […] e cjale a soreli jevât
the door looks to the east
(cjalâ, to look)

la Slovenie e je a soreli jevât dal Friûl
Slovenia is to the east of Friuli

Li means there. You will recall that the verb meti means to put.

e li al metè l’om che al veve fat
and there he put the man that he had made

Verset 9

The expression butâ fûr means to bring forth. In this verse, you encounter al fasè butâ fûr, meaning he made bring forth, he caused to come forth.

Ogni means every; ogni sorte means every sort.

The Friulian word for tree is the masculine l’arbul; its plural form is i arbui. This is not the first time you have seen a masculine noun ending in a vowel + l form its plural with i rather than s; you have also seen il nemâl, i nemâi.

The verb viodi means to see; it can also be taken as to behold.

a jerin un spetacul dome a viodiju
they were indeed a sight to behold
(literally, they were a sight just to see them)

The masculine noun il spetacul means (pleasant) sight, beauty, spectacle. Dome means only, just. Viodilu means to see it, to behold it, whereas viodiju means to see them, to behold them. Note how Friulian includes ju here; both a jerin (they were) and ju (them) refer to the trees.

You have met with a jere before, meaning it was; this is the masculine, third-person singular of the imperfet indicatîf of the verb jessi. Its third-person plural equivalent is a jerin (they were), which you find in the sentence above. Observe the following forms (only the last sentence of the four appears in the text):

al è un spectacul dome a viodilu
a son un spetacul dome a viodiju
it is indeed a sight to behold
they are indeed a sight to behold

a jere un spetacul dome a viodilu
a jerin un spetacul dome a viodiju
it was indeed a sight to behold
they were indeed a sight to behold

The adjective bon means good; here are its four forms: bon (masculine singular), buine (feminine singular), bogns (masculine plural), buinis (feminine plural).

In this verse, you encounter bogns di mangjâ (good to eat), where bogns agrees in number and gender with arbui, and the verb mangjâ means to eat. Here is another example, this time using the feminine la robe (thing): robis buinis di mangjâ.

You will recall tal mieç from Gjenesi 1:6, where you read tal mieç des aghis (in the middle of the waters). In this verse, you encounter tal mieç dal zardin (in the middle of the garden).

The tree of life is expressed in Friulian as l’arbul de vite, which translates literally as the tree of the life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is expressed as l’arbul de cognossince dal ben e dal mâl. The Friulian word for knowledge is a feminine one: la cognossince, which you will have deduced from the use of de before it. Il ben is that which is good; il mâl is that which is evil.

Verset 10

The expression saltâ fûr means to come out; in the context of this verse, you can also understand it as meaning to flow out. In this verse, you read that un flum (river) flowed out of Eden: dal Eden. The expression saltâ fûr is found in this verse in its masculine, third-person singular, imperfet indicatîf form: al saltave fûr; this can be understood as it was coming (flowing) out.

Recall that the verb bagnâ means to wet, to soak.

You have seen that li means there; now you encounter di li, meaning from there.

In this verse, you find another example of the masculine, third-person singular, imperfet indicatîf with si divideve, from the reflexive verb dividisi. The verb dividi means to divide (something); the reflexive verb dividisi means to divide oneself.

Diu al divideve il flum
God was dividing the river

il flum si divideve
the river was dividing itself

The atonic al is not expressed in the presence of si.

The verb formâ means to form. The Friulian word for arm is un braç; you will understand the use of braç in this verse as meaning branch.

par formâ cuatri braçs
to form four branches
(that is, to form four waterflows)

Verset 11

The expression vê non means to be named (literally, to have name). The Friulian for name is a masculine noun: il non. You read in this verse that il prin flum (the first river) al à non Pison (is named Pishon; literally, has name Pishon).

The expression girâ torator means to go around, where the verb girâ means to turn, and torator means around.

al gire torator
it goes around

torator de tiere di Avile
around the land of Havilah

is another word for there. You can understand là che as meaning there where.

là che al è aur
there where there is gold
where there is gold

Recall that al è is used to express there is. Aur (gold) is a masculine noun.

Verset 12

The adjective rût means pure.

The verb cjatâ means to find; the reflexive cjatâsi means to be found (literally, to find oneself). Ancje means also. La pês is resin.

si cjate ancje pês
resin is also found
(literally, resin also finds itself)

The expression nulî bon means to smell good.

la pês e nûl bon
the resin smells good

pês ch’e nûl bon
resin that smells good

chestis rosis a nulissin bon
these flowers smell good

In the last example above (not taken from the Bible), la rose means flower; the Friulian for rose, on the other hand, is il garoful.

La piere di onice means onyx stone, where the feminine noun piere means stone, and the feminine noun onice means onyx.

Verset 13

In this verse, rather than the expression girâ torator seen above, you encounter the synonymous girâ dulintor; like torator, dulintor means around. You first saw dulintor in verse 6 above: il teren dulintor.

Ghicon and Kus are the Friulian names for Gihon and Cush.

Review the ordinal numbers from first to seventh: prin, secont, tierç, cuart, cuint, sest, setim. The feminine forms are: prime, seconde, tierce, cuarte, cuinte, seste, setime.

Verset 14

Assur is the Friulian for Assyria. The rivers Tigris and Euphrates take the Friulian names Tigri and Eufrât.

The verb scori means to flow.

il Tigri al scor a soreli jevât di Assur
the Tigris flows to the east of Assyria

Continue your study of chapter 2 of the book of Genesis. There are three parts in total.