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A brief sketch of the Ga language

From:Rik <rik@...>
Date:Sunday, September 21, 2003, 1:35
I've just posted a sketch of the Ga language to my website- it can be found at
http://www.kalieda.org/planet/telik/index.html

Below is the text of the introduction page, together with some simple examples
of the language. The website includes pages on phonology, verb and nouns. A
further page of more complex examples will follow in due course.

Comments and criticisms are always welcome.

Rik

===========================================
Ga, part of the Telik group of languages, is spoken by over one and a half
million people in the far south western lands of the continent of Ewlah - in
particular Arakush, Banga, Dizkoel, Dorga, Gavakoss and Vasheil (note these
are the Ramajal renderings of these lands' names - as are the names of towns
and cities on the maps - which often bear little resemblance to the names the
Ga speakers themselves give to their lands and settlements).

The Telik languages as a whole are very different from languages such as
Ramajal or Gevey - Ga, for instance, centres its clause construction on
heavily modified verbs, which incorporate the subject (agent) of the clause
within themselves.

Much of the language's grammar is based on adding grammatical morphemes to
verb (and noun) roots. These morphemes are agglutinative in practice (though
some morphemes are beginning to fuse together), and always regular in order.
Although some of the resulting words may look long, they are easier to
understand once the word is deconstructed into its constituent roots and
morphemes.

This is a very brief sketch, offered as an introduction to the Telik
languages.

the man saw the dog
koheh'migazatramalb wakr'em

I cooked the rice
bazglezgimpikâm ewab

we built the house by the river
skagzizmimalb maklir' h'saslanundum

root noun: sadr (zatr) [class A] - man
root noun: kr'em (gr'em) [class WA] - dog
root noun: wab (wap) [class A] - rice
root noun: klir' (glir') [class MA] - house
root noun: slan (zlan) [class SA] - river

root verb: kohe (koheh') - see
root verb: baskle (bazgle) - cook
root verb: skaksi (skagzi) - build

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>