On Friday 26 April 2002 13:44, Aidan Grey wrote:
> Brought to you by C (for coffee), the distinction between
> perfective and habitual past tenses, and intensive adjectives.
>
> 1. coffee / bitter drink / culturally distinctive drink
The Kéleñi are tea drinkers. The word for tea is anmáe. They have a
word for coffee, but it is borrowed from the human word 'coffee,
kaffe' as ankáwwi. They distinguish real tea from that wimpy fake
herbal stuff, which is known as anmáli, the collective form of the
word for leaf.
> I used to drink coffee.
tielen ñalla ankáwwi á mahéñón;
past be/act+1psg.agent coffee agent drinker
I was a drinker of coffee.
> 2. tea / herbal tea
> I drank the tea in one gulp.
te anmáe jahéña mo le ho japáNNe án;
be.past tea drank.sg beneficiary 1p instr. swallow one
> 3. steep / brew = anháríke
> She used to steep the tea for 10 minutes, but she steeped
> this cup for only 7 minutes.
tielen samma anháríke mo anmáe il júsíñi té ewaT tamma mo jacúta Tó
il júsíñi é wijor í jawíja ilniTa;
past be+3p.sg.agent steeping to tea for júsíñi* 6 but
se+past+3p.sg.agent to cup this-one for júsíñi* & 4 &-also a-half only
júsíñi* are the second smallest common measure of time, equivalent to
approximately 96 seconds.
> 4. pastry / biscuits / cookies = jajéma
> She had pastry with her coffee once.
> She had pastry with her coffee every day.
te jajéma ánen ankáwwi; (simple past of la)
tielen la jajéma ánen ankáwwi; (past clausal modifier +
habitual/generic of la)
> 5. milk
> She doesn't take milk in her tea.
The Kéleñi don't generally drink milk, especially not with tea. So,
I'll use the word for honey, which is ancíllónni.
wá la anmáe ánen ancíllónni mo ma
neg be tea with honey to 3p.
> 6. bitter = ankóxi (also can be used for strong)
> The coffee was very bitter today.
> The coffee was bitter every day.
la ankáwwi ankóxi ná jaliTa; = There was very bitter coffee today.
te ankáwwi ankóxi ná jaliTa; = There was very bitter coffee once.
tielen la ankáwwi ankóxi jalóni nara; = There used to be bitter
coffee every day.
> 7. sweet =
> He likes his tea too strong and too sweet for us.
sema jatañén to anmáe é ankóxi nápie é anwórósi nápie ñe le;
be+3p.sg.beneficiary pleasure from tea & bitter/strong too-much &
sweet too-much than 1p.
Tea, too much more bitter & too much more sweet than ours pleases him.
> 8. wired / the feeling obtained after drinking 43 cups of coffee
= masíTTapie
> That guy is wired! He drinks too much coffee.
la macúma xó masíTTapie; la ankáwwi nápie mo ma;
> 9. mellow / calm / soothing (of music) = anTírne (stillness of
mind)
> The music they play is too mellow for my taste.
ñatta ansála pa anTírne nápie ñe jatañén'le;
be/act+3p.paucal.agent music has mellowness too-much than
pleasure-mine
> 10. street vendor / coffee house / tea bar / the culturally
> appropriate place to buy a cup of tea or coffee
> That street vendor always had the best tea, but then his
> wife left him.
>
> (note: in #10, it's a habitual past followed by a perfective)
tielen la makámanen ánen anmáe ná il anniTen ñi macánél rú;
past be tea-seller* with tea better/more before perfect-be lover*
away/gone.
The tea seller always had the best tea before her lover left.
The suffix -anen is an old feminine-agent suffix that is still seen
in some traditional occupations. The -él suffix, however, can be used
for either gender, and is actually a patient suffix, so macánél would
refer to a person who consented to be loved by someone.
-Sylvia
--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
The Kélen language can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html
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