Spilyay Tymoo, Wrm Springs, Oregon
March 6, 2003
Page 11
THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES LANGUAGE LESSON-
Learner's Corner
How has this section been helping (or not helping) you so far? Feel free to contact the Culture & Heritage Dept. and offer you thoughts!
So far we have covered a few common words and have looked at four action words. For each action word we have examined how it changes when you are
talking in the past, present, or future. In this issue we will review what we've learned so far. Coming up, we'll cover a few more action words and look at
different ways yet we can describe the time and behavior of actions.
Kiksht
(Wasq'u)
Just as the word "see" would be the English
root of the action phrase "I see it", the Kiksht
action root is "qmit". As we saw in the last issue,
Kiksht carries the "I" and and "it" as additions to
the action word. Action words follow this general
seqence:
tense (past, present, future) 1
subject marker (I, you, we, etc.) 2
directional marker (to, from, etc.) 3
root 4
Try to finish these sentences using the
Kiksht knowledge you have picked up so far.
: I see the longhouse.:
0 N(i) u qmit idatf'qt itqwti
1 2 3
0
Niuqmit idatf'qt itqwtf.
: You see the longhouse :
idatf'qt itqwti
1 2 3
: She sees the longhouse.:
0
12 3 4
Axka
:He sees the longhouse.:
Ytf'i.N&Dirni asrfr!
0
12 3 4
Yaxka
: They two people see the longhouse.
0
12 3 4
Numu
(Paiute)
Ichishkiin
(Sahaptin)
Numu forms action words much differently
than either Ichishkiin or Kiksht. Kiksht, Ichishkiin,
and Numu all have in common, though, their use
of "helper" phrases that are added to the end (or
beginning) of certain words. In Numu, we can see
Ichishkiin, like Kiksht, forms action words
by combining a root with helpers attached in front
of it and behind it. Ichishkiin action words are
formed first by putting the word into the correct
time with the correct subjects. As in the sen-
that to put an action word into the future, a short tence, "I see the longhouse", the information of
group of letters is added to the end of the action
word.
One thing you may have noticed by now,
too, is that the action word always come at the
end of a Numu sentence or phrase. In English, the
customary ordering of a simple sentence is this:
the subject is followed by the action word, which
is followed by the object ("I drive the car"). In
Numu the convention is this: the subject is fol
lowed by the object, which is followed by the
action word ("I the car drive").
Now, try to fill in the blanks in these exercises!
who (me) is seeing and when (the present) is
conveyed simply with one word: aq'inushaash.
The root in the case of the action word "to see"
is: q'inu. Action words generally follow this for
mat: ,.,,..,.,,,,
initial marker (used for she, they, and others) 1
root 2
tense 3
subject and object information 4
Fill in the blanks to translate these English
. iu:ui-::...
-A 'ft '. i
I see the longhouse ,
I see the longhouse.
Nu ka oodunobe poone.
You see the longhouse.
kaaftj
q'inu sha ash
2 3 4
Aq'iunushaash kaatnamna.
amnc
U ka
(S)he sees the longhouse?
Hi
You see the longhC'JS"
Oqsqo
,1,
3 4
n t
They see the longhouse.
Umu
'tat - -
v 4 We see the longhouse.
1 W'W:
. i , - - - orv.
Nume
I will see the longhouse.
poo'nekwe.
You will see the longhouse.
as ... !:
.ii n.n .. ,tM
V
T.,f jf
5
f
?rt. i n R. (S)he will sses the lonc-rj" ;.
: They more than two people see tho I
1 2,3 41'-
Thsy will see the longhcL'co.