Re: Expressing ages

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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