Literally: Twelve seers of milk to the dead buffalo. The dative (to the … ) has the meaning of has. Thus: a dead she-buffalo has twelve seers of milk.
That amount of yield for a single Indian female buffalo is beyond normal expectations and therefore isn’t true. This proverb can have double significance. It may refer to someone who makes tall claims that cannot be disproved, like the volume of milk yielded by a buffalo that is now dead.
But it can also point to the human tendency to attribute greater value to something that is beyond one’s reach or to someone (perhaps a family member) who is either dead or has moved away from one’s life.
Meanings:
mel’li
= dead, adj., fem.
mel’lê
= inflected form of the above
A male buffalo is called reddo while a female is known as mhôs
.
mhoxik
= to the she-buffalo
bara
= twelve
xêr
= a seer (fluid measure), masc. sing.
xer
= seers, masc. pl.
dud
= milk, neut. sing