Translation: Ardhamagadhi to Marathi and Marathi to Ardhamagadhi
What this domain tests
Two translation questions: an Ardhamāgadhi sentence or short passage into Marathi, and Marathi sentences into Ardhamāgadhi. Marks are lost as much for wrong case endings and undoubled consonants as for wrong meaning.
Ardhamāgadhi into Marathi
- Find the verb; read person, number and tense from its ending.
- Find the nominative - the kattā.
- Put the -ṃ word as object; a genitive in -ssa precedes its noun.
- Unpack compounds: in a tatpuruṣa the last member is the head; in a karmadhāraya both members describe the same thing.
- Keep idioms fixed: teṇaṃ kāleṇaṃ = त्या वेळी; evaṃ = असे; ṇa = नाही; vi = सुद्धा.
Marathi into Ardhamāgadhi
- Choose the root: hū (be), kar (do), gacch (go), paḍh (read), suṇ (hear), bhaṇ (say), has (laugh), dā (give).
- Add the ending matching the subject's person and number.
- Subject in the nominative, object in -ṃ.
- Double the consonant after a short vowel.
- Place ṇa immediately before the verb for negation.
Worked example
Marathi: सर्व प्राण्यांना मारू नये. Step 1: the gerundive of han ("kill") is hantavva, suffix -tavva (= Sanskrit -tavya), expressing duty or prohibition. Step 2: the object is savve pāṇe, accusative plural of pāṇa. Step 3: negate with ṇa before the gerundive. Result: savve pāṇe ṇa hantavvā. Since the gerundive is passive, the canon often puts the subject in the nominative instead: savve pāṇā ṇa hantavvā - "all beings are not to be killed".
Traps
- Rendering Marathi's instrumental -ने with the accusative, or the reverse.
- Writing s as ś or ṣ; Prakrit has only s.
- Treating ṇa as a prefix glued to the verb instead of a separate word.
- Translating word for word into Marathi and keeping Prakrit's verb-final order where Marathi prefers the verb second.
- Missing the gerundive's passive sense and translating it as an active imperative.