Source Discrepancies and New Meanings!

Apipoulaï!

So, I’ve been a busy little ansila over the past several days... it was graciously brought to my attention by a fellow fan (Thanks, Kim!) that I really needed to re-visit some of my existing translations, primarily those that were derived from other sources, and cross-reference and research their validity against the script, film and other ‘authentic’ sources. Please don’t misunderstand - I really tried to not mess with the roots of this language – I had made the decision upon the conception of this site and my research to NOT question the integrity of my sources too deeply, out of sheer respect for the authors and all their hard work. But after conducting only a little bit of my own research into some of the established translations, I can’t deny that there are some glaring discrepancies. For those who have been following, I’ve already corrected a couple errors that I just couldn’t let go – deno (you) , seno (him), and mu (formerly ‘you’). Deno and seno I am content with, but mu was giving me a headache... until recently.

What got me started on all this, aside from the suggestion and encouragement of Kim, was the new database that I’ve been building recently, to offer as another free download, which will include all the new data I’ve discovered or interpreted, and will include a source link on every word. It was determining my source for each individual word that prompted me to dig a little deeper into the meanings of those words... here’s what I previously had, based primarily around the work ‘AKTA’:

From my Sources:
Akta – Fast
Akta chtaman – Pissing somebody off
Mu fryesh akta simoulaï – You shouldn’t have done that, it was wrong

From the Script:
Teno akta chataman assin-omekta - [no known full translation]
Eto Akta Gamat! – Never without my permission
Akta dedero ansila do mektet - [no known full translation]

From the Movie:
Akta – Fast (Go! Move!)
Seno Akta Gamat! – Never without my permission

And words of my own derivation, using existing words or phrases as guidelines:
Assin – without (from an existing source)
Assin-omekta – immediately (‘without delay’)
Omekta – delay
Fryesh – shouldn’t
Simoulaï – wrong
Mu – formerly ‘you’, but has recently become questionable

However, what I have found, by simply questioning ONE word (akta), it brought many other words, phrases and contexts into question as well. AKTA is a recurring word throughout the sources, script and the film, and it seems to be used in several different contexts. The initial definition for akta was ‘fast’, which makes perfect sense in ONE scene in the movie – the scene where Leeloo has just fallen into Korben’s cab and the police are trying to apprehend her, and she says to Korben twice and very clearly, ‘Akta’, implying ‘move’ or ‘go’ or ‘fast’. And I’m inclined to think that it was this scene that prompted the early translation of akta as ‘fast’. What didn’t compute with me, however, was the use of the word both in the script AND in the film in the confirmed translation of ‘Never without my permission’ – ‘akta gamat’ (the preceding word differs from script to film, which I will touch on shortly). I had already deduced gamat as meaning ‘permission’ (and agamat as ‘forbidden’ – the opposite of gamat), but that left akta with a nonsensical meaning in the phrase... something I hadn’t previously considered, because I chose to implicitly trust my sources. If the phrase, from either the script or the film, translates to ‘never without my permission’, the core words being ‘without’ and ‘permission’, then it stands to reason that akta actually means ‘without’, NOT ‘fast’!

But I already had a pre-determined word for ‘without’, didn’t I – assin – and its meaning was further solidified by my personal translation of the phrase in which it appears in the script – ‘Teno akta chataman assin-omekta’, which I had loosely translated as meaning ‘you fast release me immediately’, as it was Leeloo’s angry dialog just after she was resurrected, bearing in mind that there were no known translations for chataman or assin-omekta. Chataman was little more than speculation as meaning ‘release’, considering the context of the scene, and assin-omekta, with assin meaning ‘without’, seemed to make sense as ‘without delay’ or ‘immediately’. But if akta actually means ‘without’, then where does that leave this particular phrase? Well, it really wasn’t that difficult to decipher. Akta chtaman was an established phrase, meaning ‘pissing somebody off’... obviously ‘chtaman’ is a mis-spelling of ‘chataman’ from this same scene! So chtaman, which I had interpreted as ‘aggravation’ independently, is essentially a non-word. That leaves me with chataman, which I had very loosely interpreted as meaning ‘release’. So, picture it – Leeloo just woke up and she’s stuck in a chamber and held under security, and all she wants to do it save the world, right? And YES, she’s pissed off, which I believe is why ‘akta chtaman’ was initially interpreted as meaning such... but I now believe it was a presumptuous translation. IF akta actually means ‘without’ and NOT ‘fast’, then what precisely would she be telling her captors they are without in that scene – ‘teno akta...’ (you’re without...)? She thinks they don’t understand who she is or why she’s there... and THAT’s why she’s frustrated and pissed off! They are without understanding, holding her captive, when she is actually their ally. (and suddenly the light goes on). Chataman doesn’t mean ‘aggravation’ or ‘release’... it means ‘understand’ or ‘understanding’! And with akta meaning ‘without’, then obviously assin doesn’t... and assin-omekta seems to be a compound or joined word. What if assin actually means ‘friend’, for which there is not yet an established Divinian word, and omekta could most certainly mean ‘conspirator’ – from the Italian 'omerta’ essentially meaning mob conspirator. So the compound of the two, as Leeloo says them in this scene, would come down to ‘collaborator’ or ‘ally’. So... akta chataman (NOT chtaman) actually means ‘without understanding’, and what she’s saying in that first scene in the script is essentially ‘You don’t understand – I am your ally!’.

And that brings us to another source phrase that comes into question with the change to the definition of akta – ‘Mu fryesh akta simoulaï’, previously translated (as a whole) to mean ‘you shouldn’t have done that, it was wrong’. I did not want to refute this translation, primarily because the source from which it came is no longer available online, so I can’t even refer to it for research purposes, so keeping the overall meaning intact, and substituting akta as meaning ‘fast’ for ‘without’, I was again put into a situation where I had to re-evaluate my own interpretations of the remaining words. Mu, which I had initially thought meant ‘you’ was already in question due to obvious and irrefutable information from the film indicating that deno actually means ‘you’. And I had, again very loosely, interpreted simoulaï as meaning simply ‘wrong’ and fryesh as meaning ‘should not’, so the phrase, as a whole, originally translated to ‘you shouldn’t fast wrong’. (kinda rough around the edges, I know...). But with mu in question, and akta now possibly meaning ‘without’, and NOT wanting to change the overall sentiment of the phrase, this is what I came up with: to do something that is wrong is to do something without logic, reason or justification, therefore simoulaï actually means ‘reason’ or something akin to it. There are NO other uses of the word mu in any sources, so I must assume that it’s not a complete word, and fryesh had no known definition prior to my assigning the interpretation of ‘shouldn’t’ to it, which was entirely speculative. So what if ‘mu’ isn’t actually a single word – could it be part of a compound word, or a preceding article of a word? Therefore, to do something wrong, something ‘without reason’ would be to behave badly, or ‘mis-behave’. From this deduction, I have assigned mu as being a negative article, similar to ‘un’, ‘dis’, ‘non’, or ‘mis’ in English, which precedes a word, and negates the meaning of that word. In this case, negating ‘behaviour’ or fryesh, and is actually spelled ‘mu’fryesh’, and is in fact one word, with my own addition of the apostrophe to show the article as separate from the root.

Another example of a phrase containing ‘akta’ from the script, if not the movie, is ‘Akta dedero ansila do mektet’, which Leeloo says to Cornelius when she discovers that David will be posing as Korben during their trip to Phloston. Again, there is little or no direct translation for this phrase, and the corresponding phrase in the actual film is considerably different. The ONLY word that was established in this phrase was akta, so I had originally interpreted the phrase as meaning directly ‘fast decision student no prepared’, with dedero meaning ‘decision’, ansila meaning ‘student’, do meaning ‘no’ and mektet meaning ‘prepared’, or rather, she was saying ‘this is a hasty decision – he is a student and not prepared’, which I believe is a fairly reasonable interpretation considering the scene in both the movie and script. And while I was concerned that changing the translation of akta to ‘without’ would corrupt this overall translation, it actually didn’t at all – she is still essentially saying that it was a hasty decision... by saying ‘without decision’, rather than ‘fast decision’. That, or she is implying that she was not included in the decision to have David pose as Korben.

Which brings us back to the very well-known phrase containing the word AKTA: ‘Akta Gamat!’ or ‘Never without my permission’. There are 2 versions of this phrase – one from the script and one from the film. In the script, the line actually reads ‘Eto Akta Gamat!’, while in the film, Leeloo clearly says ‘Seno Akta Gamat!’. Interestingly enough, both phrases fit the scene, with the interpretations of the preceding words that I’ve established – eto meaning ‘be’ and seno meaning ‘him’. Which leaves the script phrase as being more of an verb-based phrase (to ‘be without permission’), while the movie version is more accusatory toward Korben (‘HIM or HE without permission’). But I think either way works just fine, and essentially gets the point across without corrupting the actual meaning of the sentence.

And last, but certainly not least... the only remaining usage of the work AKTA (thus far) that I am still stumped on... back in Korben’s cab when the cops are trying to apprehend Leeloo... WHY would she say ‘without’ to Korben so vehemently? This is the ONLY instance that changing the definition of this word from ‘fast’ to ‘without’ causes me pause. It fits so eloquently into every other scene, but not this one. Could she be trying to say ‘without delay’, or ‘without stopping’, or ‘without hesitation’?? I’m totally stuck on this one, so if anyone can offer some ideas, I’m open to suggestion – please email me anytime at kameleon@thedivinelanguage.com.

I have included these changes in my new database, which will be available for download before the end of August in both Access 2003 AND Access 2007 versions. I have NOT yet made these changes to the information here on the site, but plan to do so before the end of the month as well.

Domo danko dat soun ekbat!

Lacta,
T.

PS – STAY TUNED for the long-awaited translation of LEELOO’S FULL NAME - Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat!! As far as I know, there is no known translation of her second and third names, and I’ve come across some GREAT meanings, using real linguistic references!! TBA in the coming days!