Sample lesson

[leanancailin]

Here's a sample lesson I wrote up for my current project. I'd appreciate any feedback on how easy it is to understand the explanations, how appropriate the pace of introducing things feels (is this too many concepts for one lesson? are there inflected words given as a whole that you feel should be explained earlier?), etc.



Lesson 1

Dialogue:
Hyámte: Êchrirueg.
Myínte: veɁâvagi. leBǎgli ulemnvayi?
Hyámte: l'Ulemnye Hyámtehu. leGu vagech?
Myínte: leɁa Myíntehu. leBaglitɂa segehu?
Hyámte: leThasqiyetɂa. l'Ulemnse Thɂártehu.
Myínte: Êchrirueg, Thɂártero. Ɂava, leyeriascihan. Chôraruog.
Hyámte: leScrunî qaras, câlnîva. Chêrarueg.



Vocabulary:

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êchrirueg			a traditional greeting (to a single person)
veɂâvagi			the response to a greeting or farewell from a single person

leBǎgli ulemnvayi?		What is your name?
l'Ulemnye _____-hu.	My name is _____.
Hyámte				a name (the red one, the swarthy one)
leGu vagech?			And you?
leɁa _____-hu.			I am _____. / This is _____.
Myínte				a name (who is guarded)

leBaglitɂa segehu?		Who is that?
leThasqiyetɂa.			This is my father. / This is my mother.
l'Ulemnse _____-hu.	His name is _____.
Thɂárte				a name (who is pure)

Ɂava...				Well... / So...
leyeriascihan			I have to get going.
chôraruog			farewell to multiple people
lescrunî				I am happy.
qaras				therefore, because of that
câlnîva				I know you / I met you
chêrarueg			farewell to a single person

ôchrairuog			greeting to multiple people
voɂâvagai			response to a greeting or farewell from multiple people

Grammar:
le-
The le- prefix indicates a grammatical feature called evidentiality, which communicates how the person speaking learned the information they're communicating. le- indicates knowledge obtained firsthand. In later lessons, we will address different evidentiality markers and when they are used; for now, make sure you put le- on the front of all verbs.

le- is shortened to l' before a vowel.

-ɂa
The -ɂa suffix means “here is” or “this is”; it is appended to a noun directly, instead of used as a separate phrase like in English. Appending to -ɂa to a noun makes it a verb; this means it can stand alone in a sentence, since all sentences in Ǎpelcheq Mâulochsab must start with a verb; it then also requires an evidentiality marking, like le-.

Ɂa can also stand in as a dummy verb; when followed by a noun it means “this is”.

-hu
-hu is a topic marker; it's a case ending put on a noun to show it is what the sentence about or to give it special focus. It's commonly used following leɂa and when giving someone's name.

-ro
-ro is another case ending called the vocative, used to address people.

Verbs: nominalization and object marking
You may have noticed the similarity between ulemnvayi, l'ulemnye, l'ulemnse. These all derive from the verb “to call”, like “they call me ____”. Verbs in Ǎpelcheq Mâulochsab can be suffixed to show their object:

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	l'ulemnye	they call me
	l'ulemnva	they call you
	l'ulemnse	they call him (her)

Verbs can also be made into nouns; many of these nouns use the object marker to showwhose it is; so the noun ulemnyi “name” takes the same markings as above to show whose name it is:

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	l'ulemnye	they call me			ulemnyeyi	my name
	l'ulemnva	they call you			ulemnvayi	your name
	l'ulemnse	they call him (her)		ulemnseyi	his (her) name

Note that the evidentiality marker is lost when the verb becomes a noun.

You can also see this object maker possession in thasqiyet “my father”; the uninflected version is thasqit “parent”.






Practice
Try translating the following sentences, using the provided words:

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	phalvî	I'm looking at		
	cure		a good thing		
	amle		woman
	memal	he hears		
	ahud	apple		
	arne		man

This is a good thing.
I'm looking at you.
Who is the woman?
My name is Yɂáste.
his mother

leMemalye.
leɁa ahud.
leBaglitɂa arnehu?
Ɂava, lescrunî qaras, câlnîse.





Answer key:
leCureɂa.
lePhalvîva.
leBaglitɂa amlehu?
l'Ulemnye Yɂástehu.
thasqiset

He hears me.
This is an apple.
Who is the man?
Well, I am happy I met her.

[KathTheDragon]

Is ɂ the miniscule of Ɂ?

[leanancailin]

Is ɂ the miniscule of Ɂ?

Yes. I was using ' for ʔ for a while, but I wanted to use that to break up clusters that look like digraphs and for elision in prefixes.

[Ambrisio]

Êchrirueg!

It's a great lesson. Makes me want to write an impromptu Auzinim or Kugugukku' lesson.