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This is a Pan/English dictionary intended to help readers of The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium by Harry Mathews.
"Slow, you may take-on my tongue, like I your."
—Tro-tsi Twang Panattapam McCaltex, p. 92
Pan
atra
atram
bukhaï
battazhum
dek
dhum
duvaï
ghanap
laï
Lao
lemö, lemu
lemum
lucrem
lucri
lucrim
ma
maï
mau
me
mem
mo
naï
nam
namma
Namma Ghaï
neng
nob
Nob-ma
pheu
phrap
pok
pop
pristwe, -i, -ei
sheenam
sheenö
slop
stheu
tharaï
theu
ticbaï
ticbaï laï
üin
uüaxe
uüax-m
vin
weï, wey
wuc, wun
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English
think (pok atro: do not speak, but think)
I think
kind of brush; tree
prostitute, whore
in (?)
stink
long farewell, death
hour(s)
mud
Laotian
love
I love (nob-lemum: for that I love)
I eat (nob lucrim: I ate)
eat (nob lucri: to eat)
food
Being, being
now, for-this-moment; The Now
to be (?)
to be (nob-me: for to be, become)
be
be [command]
so, thus
in, of
royal shrine
capital of Pan-Nam
nose; Buddha's nose; beautiful thing (if body not mentioned)
[qualifier: for, have]
O Being (pok-ma: no being)
yours
sari-like outfit
not [negative]
over (?), on (?)
demon
I endure, I bear (it)
I shall bear
misery
entire (?)
without end, endless, forever
us, we
running from, turning against; in the face of, in front of; confronted with
in flight of mud (Twang's village) / confronted with mud (in the capital)
idea
retch
I vomit; man; what man makes; to make
cadaver, corpse
alas, sadness, woe; to laugh
to be similar, like (?)
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Thus, letter 100, Twang's penultimate letter to Zachary (p. 182), might be translated as:
7 Not Mud
Dear Beloved! love body now vomits the demon. We are beautiful things, alas forever farewell. As all Laotians think, run-from/confront now misery, thus: we shall endure eating eels in mud.
See also: "History of Odradek" by Franz Kafka
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