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Re: Expressing ages

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Friday, March 28, 2003, 0:06
Rachel Klippenstein wrote:
> > I'm trying to figure out how age is expressed in > Ikanirae Seru, and I'm interested in knowing how other > languages do it.
Kash usually uses fiyan pehandi (/fiyan pehan-ti/) how-many year-2pos "How old are you? ~What's your age?" Some speakers think "year" should be pluralized in this case (though it's unnecessary), so "fiyan pehanaçti" is OK Reply: pehambi (~pehanaçmi), rofola (topic/comment) my-years, twenty "He's older than you": (iya) pehañi lavi aloti (pehan-ni) (he) his-year(s) more from-2poss. There's also the word "marok" 'old' which refers to people roughly 40-up (also, inanimate things of any age), so-- fiyan marokni amati/ tamati "How old is your father / grandfather?" Since marok is a verb/adj., it can be conjugated-- fiyan hamarok? lit. how-much you-are old? (but not in the reply: marokmi, nipola nim "I'm 55" (lit. my-old, 55) ) and also amami lavi yamarok aloni hati my-father more 3s-old from-that you/gen. My father is older than yours.

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Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>