Lisa's Turkish Haiku to JB

For JB's 45th (1997) Birthday ...

Did you have a good day? Happy Belated Birthday--in your honor, I have composed a poem, in Turkish:

Ode to JB
(some assembly required)*

arkadasimin adi JB, ve
Onun kopegi en cok seviyorum;
Onun dogum gunusu unuttum
Ofkeli degil umit ediyorum!

*Put a cedilla under the "s" in word 1, and take the dots off all the "i"'s in line 1; add an umlaut over the "o" in kopegi and a hat on the g; put another cedilla under the "c" in cok, and another hat on the "g" in dogum, and umlauts on the "u"'s in gunusu; put an umlaut on the "o" in ofkeli, a hat on the "g" in degil, and an umlaut on the "u" in umit:

arkadaşımın adı JB, ve
Onun kŏpeĝi en çok seviyorum;
Onun doĝum günüsü unuttum
Ŏfkeli deĝil ümit ediyorum!

Read aloud and enjoy! :-)  (P.S.: note how well it rhymes! Pretty impressive, huh?!)

Lots of love and best wishes for the coming year,
Lisa

Five years later, I did tease this translation from Lisa:

My friend's name is JB, and
I really love his dog;
I forgot his birthday
No hard feelings I hope!

Corrections applied per Lisa (7-07-02): Most importantly, there are TWO mistakes in the Turkish Ode to JB! Allahhallah! First, it should be "arkadasiMin" with an M (not Arkadasinin ), then, in the last line, it's "eDiyorum" with a D (not etiyorum). Silly me! When was this written? 1997? Well, I really didn't know much Turkish then, did I? How pedestrian! I can do (and have!) much better now...