Welsh to Bodo: recover the owner behind ei and keep recipient roles separate
Read the noun after ei before deciding whose name it is
The Open University’s Welsh course contrasts ei enw e with ei henw hi, his name and her name. The possessive ei alone does not visibly distinguish the two readings. The following noun form and the supporting pronoun help identify the person referred to in these attested phrases.
That distinction cannot be carried into Bodo by copying a change to the beginning of the translated noun. Basumatary’s personal-pronoun study gives bi for he or she and bi-ni for his or her in a genitive construction. A Bodo form can consequently leave gender less explicit than the Welsh phrase does.
When a Welsh message mentions two people and then asks for one person’s name, resolve the reference before translating. The source may distinguish the owner through more than one part of the phrase. If the Bodo wording leaves two plausible referents, the complete construction must make the intended person recoverable rather than silently assigning the name to somebody else.
A telephone-number request contains an owner, not a new telephone noun
The same Welsh lesson contrasts ei rif ffôn e and ei rhif ffôn hi. The change from rh to r helps distinguish the illustrated possessive phrases; it does not identify a different kind of telephone number. Both ask about the same category of information while referring to different people.
For Welsh-to-Bodo translation, interpret that initial change as grammatical evidence before looking up vocabulary. Treating rif and rhif as unrelated lexical meanings would miss the source construction. Conversely, translating only ei and ignoring the following form could miss which person the number belongs to.
The useful unit is the entire request: identify the person, the requested information and whether the speaker is asking directly or reporting another enquiry. The Welsh mutation is part of interpreting the source reference; it is not a target suffix to reproduce mechanically.
Keep possession distinct from the person receiving something
Basumatary’s Bodo example about bringing a book distinguishes bi-ni, the owner’s genitive, from aŋ-nɯ, the first-person recipient. One person owns the book and another is to receive it. These are different roles even if both are represented by short pronominal forms.
A Welsh request involving somebody’s belongings needs the same separation. Determine whose item is meant before deciding who receives it. A translation can correctly name the object and still reverse the practical instruction by making the recipient into the owner.
The Bodo study also distinguishes ordinary bi from honorific bithaŋ. That social distinction is separate from the male–female reference illustrated by the Welsh name phrases. A gender distinction recovered from Welsh does not itself justify an honorific choice, and an honorific Bodo form does not restore a gender contrast absent from its meaning. Preserve ownership, recipient and social relationship as separate decisions supported by the source message.
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