Lower Sorbian to Divehi: an origin can be a place, a person or an earlier moment
Read the source relation before choosing a target case
Pankau’s colloquial Lower Sorbian examples include a preposition and question modifier separated from their later noun, such as a question about the shoes someone is walking in. The relationship still belongs to that noun phrase. A translator should recover the complete expression before deciding what its Divehi counterpart needs.
Sonja Fritz’s Divehi grammar distinguishes several functions that can share case morphology, including direction, origin and means. A source phrase’s position does not identify which of those meanings is intended. A detached question expression must be connected back to its noun rather than interpreted as an unrelated question about a person or place.
For an original Lower Sorbian question about the means used to travel, distinguish that means from the starting point. A Divehi form that can express an origin elsewhere is not automatically an accurate equivalent when the source asks how the journey was made.
Persons do not follow the same origin pattern as nonpersons
Fritz describes synthetic Divehi ablative–instrumental endings as restricted to nonpersonal nouns and pronouns. Her account of the modern standard treats personal source expressions with postpositional kuren after an oblique form. The target choice therefore depends on what kind of referent supplies the origin or agency.
An original Lower Sorbian report about receiving something from two colleagues should not be formed by attaching a nonpersonal ending merely because that ending works for a place or instrument. The colleagues are personal referents. The target must retain both that relationship and the fact that the source identifies two people.
The DOBES overview confirms that Lower Sorbian dual reference is grammatical. That exact pair may need explicit preservation in the Divehi wording rather than being left as an unspecified group. Personhood determines one target constructional choice; number determines another. Neither should be inferred from the other.
Temporal direction is different from a recipient
Fritz also explains that Divehi dative forms can mark local and temporal direction, not only indirect objects. An expression directed toward a time should therefore not be interpreted as naming a person who receives an item simply because a familiar case label is dative.
For an original Lower Sorbian arrangement specifying delivery toward a particular time, separate the time from the recipient. A target can correctly identify the colleagues and still lose when the delivery is due; conversely, a correct time expression does not prove that the item goes to the right people.
This guide uses the modern-standard distinctions in Fritz’s account without importing forms she attributes specifically to southern varieties. The exact-pair issue is how to unpack a Lower Sorbian relation, including separated source material, and then assign its meaning to the appropriate Divehi construction. Identify what supplies the origin, whether it is personal, whether the source names a pair, and whether another phrase specifies time. A shared case label cannot replace that interpretation.
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