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Observations on Spoken Merkin

From:Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Date:Monday, December 27, 2004, 1:21
Merkin - The spoken language of 21st century Amerkins.

The verb prefix "ma-" indicates intention on the part
of the speaker to perform the action of the verb in
the immediate future.

This derives from "moana" which stands before the verb
and had the same meaning.

This, in turn, comes from the older "amana", a
contraction of "I'm gonna" which is a variation of "I
am going to".

Multi-word verbs like "run away" and "go for" became
glued together into single words.  The definite and
indefinite articles, of course, became prefixes to the
nouns they modify.

Thus we go from:

   "I am going to go for a walk."

to:

   "I'm gonna go for a walk."

to:

   "Amana goefur a walk."

to:

   "Moana goefur awawk."

to:

   "Ma goefra awawk."

to modern standard spoken Merkin:

   "Magoefrawawk."

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Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>