Re: (CHAT) Re: weekly vocab

Roger Mills <romilly@...> launched:

>> "My god, the duchess is pregnant, and no-one knows by
>> whom."
>>>
Kash (colloq., mainly omitting person-prefixes on the verbs):
çehambi, yamana karun ye, i ta kaya (kaç) karí amani!
Spirits-my, with-child duke that-Fem, and not know person who father-its/the
<<<
In Tunu:

Pray+to God! Woman marry chief gets+pregnant+into but no person gets+knowing
that what man makes+pregnant+into.
Namonye Tana! Nocha nupo kahi a paimulonya wi kela taka a pailone i pani laki a
taimulonya!

The little "a" everywhere really means "there is" and pretags most sentence
predicates (or said otherwise: it posttags the topic--that's how you like it :)
Example:
nocha nupo kahi = woman marry chief = the chief's wife
Nocha a nupo kahi. = Woman predicate marry chief. =  The woman marries/is
married with the chief.

It is similar to how black Africans speak French in "Tintin au Congo": "Le
patron lui y'en a parler français."--a calque for some Bantu syntax apparently.
Tunu people don't have "dukes." "Kahi" means "chief" but a "kahi" has next to no
compelling authority and is expected to talk a lot with everyone at a time
before making a decision. That's why Tunu "politicians" seldom make any
decision. At least THEY have a good reason for it. That's also why the word
"kahi" is a plain noun and not made from a verb like "lead-er", "rule-er", etc.
are. If you want to embarass Tunu people, just ask them what their "kahi" does:
"Well, erm, let me see...He "does" not, he "is" our kahi." I am currently
writing up a page on Tunu society which is quite anarchic, primitivistic and
balance-driven. We always wonder HOW to make things while they carefully check
WHY make them at all in the first place, especially because it always implies
working double since an important concept is "tupenye puhe"--"compensation for
tapping": You can't tap your environment without compensating in some way lest
the spirits should revenge by making you depressed or over-ambitious like those
unfortunate Pajamese, Maniaricans and Dingonesians are by now. Just so. I have
to do my washing now, though.

Mathias
www.geocities.com/kalatunu/index.htm