Here's a dialogue between the younger sisters of Rarisa Fingali
and Sonoka Ramichu, whom we met in the last lesson. They are still
in school, so this dialogue takes place towards the end of a school day.
Rarisa Gachaila: Saiza taii!
Sonoka Saizana: Gacha taii! Dabada tozui gacha?
Gachaila:
Yati na! Yana o jigakisa liningiacha.
Saizana:
Yaiatai. Yana o tira yaliningiacha.
Gachaila:
Shakama. Kangəpa jigachaia o yaze galai.
Saizana:
Kangə o kizuya jighae liniacha. Lunicha-su o hijigakisa galai.
Gachaila:
Aiu tira yo yana nu o chijigakisa galai na!
Now let's break it down:
Rarisa Gachaila: Saiza taii!
Sonoka Saizana: Gacha taii! Dabada tozui gacha?
Translation:
Rarisa Gachaila: Hey, Saiza!
Sonoka Saizana: Hey, Gacha! How's today?
Explanation:
Taii is a shortened form of metani. It translates
roughly as "Hey!". Usually, yo is omitted and shortened forms
of names are used before taii.
Dabada means "today".
Tozui means "how" in the sense of "how was your day", not "How
do you do this?". The latter is menu-tozu.
Gachaila: Yati na! Yana o jigakisa liningiacha.
Saizana: Yaiatai. Yana o tira yaliningiacha.
Translation:
Gachaila: Bad! I've got homework.
Saizana: That's too bad. I don't have it.
Explanation:
Yati means "bad".
Na is a particle put at the end of a sentence to emphasize it.
It acts as a spoken exclamation point.
O is a particle marking the direct object. See Grammatical
Notes 1.
Jigakisa means "schoolwork" or "homework" (the latter is nirajigakisa,
but that word is rarely used except in its shortened form nijiki).
Liningiacha is the present active of lininga, "to have".
Yaiatai means "I'm sorry" or "That's a shame". It is used
to condole people who have suffered some small misfortune.
Ya- is a prefix meaning not or no, so yaliningiacha means
"do not have". See Grammatical Notes 2.
Gachaila: Shakama. Kangəpa jigachaia o yaze galai.
Saizana: Kangə o kizuya jighae liniacha. Lunicha-su
o hijigakisa galai.
Gachaila: Aiu tira yo yana nu o chijigakisa galai na!
Translation:
Gachaila: You're lucky. Your teachers give nothing.
Saizana: You have hard classes. Ms. Lunicha gives a lot
of homework.
Gachaila: And she gives ME the most!
Explanation:
Shakama means "you're lucky".
Yaze means "nothing". Do you see the ya- in it?
Jigachaia is the plural of jigachai, "teacher".
See Grammatical Notes 3.
Galai is the tenseless active of gali, "to give".
See Grammatical Notes 4.
Kizuya means "hard".
Jighae is the plural of jigha, class or course (did you
recognize this word from the title?).
Liniacha is the present active of lina, "to have" (less
physical than lininga)
-su means "Ms." -sa means "Mr." See Grammatical
Notes 5.
Hi-, when attached to a noun, means much, a lot of, or many.
See Grammatical Notes 6.
Yo marks the indirect object. See Grammatical Notes 1.
Nu is a form of na used in the middle of a sentence. See
Grammatical Notes 7.
Chi-, when attached to a noun, means a ton of, a huge amount
of, a huge number of. Here it has the force of a superlative, e.g.
the most. See Grammatical Notes 6.
Grammatical Notes 1: More Particles
O and yo are two medial particles that serve to separate
the parts of a sentence. O is placed before the direct object
(what receives the action of the verb) and yo before the indirect
object (what or who the action is being done to or for). Yo
always goes directly after the subject and before o, which goes
before the verb.
Grammatical Notes 2: Ya-
Ya- is a prefix meaning "not" or "no". It is placed in
front of adjectives, nouns, and verbs to make the negative. It is
also used in certain pairs of words to show negative (as in ailika
"always" and yalika "never") and is used to mean "that" in correlatives.
This last use shows some blending with the unrelated identifying suffix
-ya.
Grammatical Notes 3: Noun Plurals
All nouns form plurals regularly. The plural ending is -a
unless the noun ends in a, in which case the a changes to
ae.
So jigachai-jigachaia, kusau-kusaua,
funiza-funizae.
Grammatical Notes 4: The Timeless Tense
The timeless tense is formed by forming the active of a dictionary
verb and omitting any tense suffix. In other words, take a verb in
the present active and remove the -cha. It is used for situations
that either are or seem eternal; i.e. Sasila sa'ia "A planet goes"
(Retiki has no articles) as opposed to Yana sa'iacha "I am going".
The best translation is usually the present tense. It's easy to overuse
this tense, so be careful.
Grammatical Notes 5: Titles
Like Chinese and Japanese, Retiki places titles after the name.
The title is attached to the last name spoken and does not take any accent
unless it is very long (then it is stressed according to its own pattern).
Not just "Mr." and "Ms.", but also titles like raka "queen" and
rakiatiru "president" are attached after the name.
Grammatical Notes 6: The Many Uses of Hi- and Chi-
Hi- and its stronger version chi- have many different
uses. As you read, attached to nouns they mean a great quantity of,
the majority of, or most of. The noun is not pluralized. Attached
to adjectives and verbs, they strengthen the meaning. So hikisau
means "many buses", but hikizuya means "very hard".
Grammatical Notes 7: Medial Particles Again
Most sentence-final particles have medial forms ending in u
instead of a. They only affect the word directly before them,
while the sentence-final forms usually affect the whole sentence.
Tai's medial form is tau.
Back to Lesson 1
Back to Retiki
© SHIHALI Ramichu 27 December 1999