Translation please... "magodai"

Starken · Post by **Starken** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:39 pm

I know it's a Chamorro word (native to Guam), and I think it's an emotion. Tried googling, etc. with not much luck. Might be a slang term. Help?

akula65 · Post by **akula65** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:27 pm

Why in the world would you think that someone on this particular bulletin board would know the answer to your query? Do you really think that someone is going to go to the trouble of going to http://ns.gov.gu/language.html, download and install the Chamorro Language Translator Software, figure out how to get the decrepit program to work, recognize that you are sending everyone on a wild goose chase looking for "magodai" when the word is in the software as "Mike Alpha ' Golf Oscar Delta Delta Alpha India", figure out how to outsmart the idiotic DBB profanity filter which can't tell the difference between Chamorro and English (and apparently doesn't know how to spell profane words in English anyway), and then tell you what it means?

You, Sir, are a cad and a lout.

P.S. Don't try this at home. I am a professional linguist, and I am very ma'goddai just now.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:19 pm

And I believe Starken is a professional cryptologist.

Unix · Post by **Unix** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:50 pm

akula65 wrote:I am a professional linguist, and I am very ma'****i just now.

Off topic - but I'm a linguist as well. What languages do you speak/what kind of work do you do?

akula65 · Post by **akula65** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 9:43 pm

DCrazy - Wait until he gets the bill for my consultation fee.

Unix - Although I was in a general linguistics program as a graduate student, my focus was in Slavic Linguistics. This allowed me to take Slavic linguistics courses without all of those lit courses required for the honest-to-goodness Slavic Dept. folks. I took courses in Old Church Slavic, Common Slavic, Czech (one year), Serbo-Croatian (1 1/2 years) and a course in the structure of Uto-Aztecan languages. In my field studies course we had a Toba Batak speaker to interrogate for a semester. My instructor said his Toba Batak was "contaminated" with Indonesian though. I also took the usual general sequences in Phonetics, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, etc. I did my graduate work back in the mid-90s, so I am pretty rusty. The only thing I still read or listen to is Russian, which I had studied on my own prior to graduate school.

Until last year, I had been living in Alaska and working as a software engineer and in computer operations for various companies and organizations for over 5 1/2 years, so I haven't really made use of my linguistics skills.

What about you?

roid · Post by **roid** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 9:59 pm

i'm real interested in linguistics, and have oft considered going down that career path.

could you tell me (as much as you want to) about it?

Nightshade · Post by **Nightshade** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:20 pm

How about starting with english, Roid?

Starken · Post by **Starken** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 12:47 am

Heh! Thanks akula. I actually did find the translator software after psoting here. The trouble is the listing there doesn't match the context where I heard the term, so I suspect there is another meaning. I was (still am actually) hoping to get some help from someone fluent in the language.

Asking here is a long shot of course, but I've been surprised before. Surely someone here knows someone who knows someone....

Or maybe not.

akula65 · Post by **akula65** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:41 am

Roid - My suggestion would be to find a university nearby that offers an introductory course in linguistics to undergraduates, contact someone in the department who teaches the course, ask them what text(s) they use, and buy or borrow a copy to read. While the theory in such texts is usually not cutting-edge, it will give you a good idea about the sorts of questions and issues that linguists address. I would give you some titles I am familiar with (Fromkin and Rodman, etc.), but I suspect they would be out-of-print.

If you want a place to start on the Web, I would suggest the following:

http://www.lsadc.org/index2.php?aaa=fldcont.htm

Starken - I'm afraid I am fresh out of Guam natives.

Unix · Post by **Unix** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:16 pm

akula65 -

Oddly enough I'm an Airborne Russian linguist in the USAF. Currently I'm taking the advanced course in Monterey, CA @ DLI. But I have nowhere near the amount of expericence that you have. However, when I finish my enlistment in 2006 I want to get my Master's in Russian Language and do some sort of work in an Embassy.

Esli ty khochesh' govorit' po russkij so mnoj, ty mozhesh' imelovat' mne

akula65 · Post by **akula65** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:25 pm

Unix - Bol'shoe tebe spasibo za tvoe predlozhenie!

Good luck with your course and the advanced degree.

I don't know if your instructors have encouraged you to take advantage of the opportunity or not, but you can listen to (and actually download) Voice of Russia broadcasts on a daily basis. I used to listen to shortwave broadcasts in younger days, but there is no need to put up with all the static and propagation problems when you can get the broadcasts here:

http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/s ... ationID=25

If you listen to Russian broadcasts from stations like Radio Canada International, VOA, or the BBC, you can tell that a lot of the programs are (sometimes odd) Russian translations of scripts written by English speakers, so if you really want to get immersion in actual Russian word order and vocabulary, stick to the Voice of Russia.

Keep 'em flying!

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:47 pm

Mogwai?

Darktalyn1 · Post by **Darktalyn1** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:30 pm

I used to live in Guam and actually had to take Chomorran classes while I was there, but it was so long ago I don't remember any of it, sorry.