The English is partially redundant, too, since it could be reduced to:

"If he told me to go screw, I'd tell you he told me to."
or even:
"If he told me to go screw, I'd tell you."

stevo

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Douglas Koller
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Okay, so I'm at work today, and I hear the sentence:
>
> "If he told me to go screw, I'd tell you he told me to go screw." (16
> syllables)
>
> Amazed at how concise the utterance was for the concept it was expressing,
> I immediately wondered how Géarthnuns would handle it, knowing full well
> that it could never be that tight or compact. I got:
>
> "Söb lé, gü sí lé ba dhgaukh hükadiz sho, haurönjöth (sho), sí lí öçkek,
> gü söb lé, gü sí lé ba dhgaukh hükadiz sho, höirönjöth sho, ölzdenü
> hehíaugavel." (42 syllables)
>
> he-nom. aux.-past, GÜ I-nom. past BA "screw"" go-imperative SHO,
> tell-speculative (SHO), I-nom. future you-dat., GÜ he-nom. past BA "screw"
> go-imp. SHO, tell-discoursive SHO, irrealis.adverb tell/inform-conclusive
>
> gü - starts a subordinate clause, like "that", "daß", "que", etc.
> ba - links two verbs, like "to", "zu", "te", "att", etc.
> sho - marks the end of a subordinate clause, like Japanese "to" or "-tte"
> ("chi" in Chikuho dialect) in (in)direct discourse
>
> "dhgaukh" has no specific meaning yet as I coined it only today, but it
> will cover the "pound sand", "drop dead" (Mandarin: qu4si3; Taiwanese
> ki1si2), "f*** off" ("f*** o.s."), "screw" semantic range.
>
> As written, I see only the one "sho" in parentheses possibly being
> dropped; and since we're using the speculative mood, the word for "if"
> isn't really necessary, but could have been put in, for 43 syllables. I
> suppose one could say:
>
> "Söb lé, gü sí lé ba dhgaukh hükadiz sho, haurönjöth, sí lí öçkek
> helkeveçö ölzdenü hehíaugavel."
>
> which is actually:
>
> "If he told me to go screw, I would tell you thus."
>
> which may garner you more points for style in your eighth grade Géarthnuns
> class (though your teacher might peer over her glasses at you for your use
> of the word "dhgaukh"), but it's not quite the same, is it?
>
> One is inclined to wonder if this is the communicative strategy a
> Géarthnuns speaker would use to convey the concept that if he told me to go
> screw, I would not keep that (hidden) from you (which was the speaker's
> intent).
>
> Kou
>