On Sige, a human approaches an inlanlu tahori who is in her hamin skin. This time, the human is a little more aware of the tahori meaning of “how are you?”.
English Translation
Human: “Hello.”
Inlanlu: “Hello. How are you?”
H: “I’m curious. Do you know where Kyiere is?”
I: “Is that the nearby town?”
H: “Yes. I’m lost.”
I: “Go east for a few hours. You’ll find it.”
H: “Thank you very much.”
Literal Translation
“Respectful greetings.”
“Friendly greetings. You-what-feel?”
“Respect, I-curious-feel. Where Kyiere-is you-know?”
“That town-nearby is?”
“Yes. I-lost.”
“Friendly, east-wards you-go for day-part-small. There you-are-futuretense.”
“Gratitude lots to you I-give.”
Uhjayi Conversation
“Jodh yidh.”
“Lih shehth. Du-omnara?”
“Jodh unjehnra. Dachna Kyiere huri dudari?”
“Choku kholkudhid huri na?”
“Ki. Unvykri.”
“Lih yihs-sha duzyri es tihchfythkit. Dach-cho duhurivo.”
“Rujhku shudh sag duku unlomri.”
Special Pronunciation
Kyiere is a human name, not pronounced as one would in Uhjayi. kee-AIR-ay
Notes
~ Verb tense is attached to the end of the verb, after the -ri. Duhuri means “you are,” while duhurivo means “you will be.” -vo does not literally mean “will” – it is merely an indicator of future tense.
~ When a noun instead of a pronoun is the subject, it is not directly attached to the verb. Dugiri is “you sing” – nenam giri is “woman sings.”
~ Yihs-sha is a compound word: yihs is “east” and -sha is a modifier indicating direction, roughly equivalent to saying “eastwards” in English. When talking about “the east,” one would say yihsku. Remember, the hyphen is only used to ensure the speaker pronounces both S and SH sounds.
~ Notice the difference in Lesson 1‘s fythkukit (“a little bit”) and today’s tihchfythkit (“a small part of the day”). Fyth, “part,” is a modifier to “day” instead of its own noun, so -ku is not present in tihchfythkit. Some roots, like tihch (“day”), do not need -ku as a modifier if they can only be used as nouns.
~ Tahori don’t have concepts of minutes and hours; they have small/large day-parts and moments. Saying a small day-part could be anywhere from an hour to four hours, roughly.
Extra Credit
~ Thyl is the root for “west.” How would you say “westwards” and “the west”? Hint: you won’t need a hyphen.
~ Based off the first and second notes above, how would you say “you will sing”?
~ Based off the fourth note above, what is the root that means “small” or “little”? If that root is always a suffix and “khol” is the root indicating a settlement, how would you say “a small town”? Hint: you’ll need -ku in there. Look at the conversation for help.
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