Divehi to Bangla: from a person and by means of something are separate relationships
A shared source case label does not choose one Bangla postposition
Fritz describes a Divehi ablative/instrumental category whose uses include source and means. For non-person nouns, its synthetic endings differ from constructions referring to people. A translator must therefore read the particular relation rather than replace every occurrence labelled ablative/instrumental with one target word.
Thompson’s Bangla grammar distinguishes rasta theke, from the road, from babar kach theke, from father. She describes kach theke as more common with animate expressions than theke alone. Identifying a person as source can therefore involve a different target phrase from identifying a physical starting point.
For an original Divehi message about receiving something from a teacher, preserve the teacher as source. A target clause meaning that someone performed the action with the teacher’s help would give that person an instrumental role instead. The same teacher could participate in both events, but the relationships differ.
Fritz separately discusses standard Divehi kuren after an oblique person expression with a meaning corresponding to from the side of. Her southern examples also use genitive-based formations with farātun or related forms. These are dialect-specific source constructions, not interchangeable endings to combine freely within one sentence.
The Bangla wording should follow the intended source relationship even when the Divehi phrase contains a form associated historically with a broader case category. A grammatical label can help locate evidence, but it does not establish whether a person supplies information, sends an object or helps perform an action.
Means, origin and comparison can share vocabulary without sharing meaning
Thompson illustrates diŷe with an instrument or material and with an animate participant expressing help. These uses differ from the source relationship expressed by theke. A target postposition needs to match how the participant enters the event, rather than the source phrase’s approximate English gloss by or from.
For an original Divehi account of moving furniture through someone’s assistance, retain the helper’s involvement. Substituting a target from phrase could instead suggest that the furniture was obtained from that person. The result would change the helper into a previous holder or source.
Thompson also documents a comparative use of theke. It can introduce what something is being compared with, rather than a physical point of departure. An original Divehi comparison between two options should therefore not be read as a travel event merely because the target contains a form elsewhere translated from.
Conversely, a source instruction identifying where to collect a parcel must remain a source-of-transfer expression. Turning it into a comparison would leave the pickup location unspecified. The object’s movement, the helper’s contribution and the comparative standard require separate interpretations.
In this direction, identify whether the Divehi phrase introduces a person-source, a non-person origin, an instrument or an assisting participant. Then choose the appropriate Bangla relationship expression. The source’s combined ablative/instrumental terminology and the target’s multifunctional postpositions both make isolated dictionary substitution unreliable for preserving who supplied what and how the event was carried out.
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