[Multilingual Monday] Cherokee verbs kick my ass
I have a love-hate relationship with verbs in the Cherokee language. On one hand, I love how ingenious the use of suffixes and prefixes onto the root are that indicate time, habitualness, subject, object, method, and more. On the other, the quick build-up in complexity means that these words keep repeatedly kicking my ass. :: laugh ::
A good example of a simpler "buildup" would be ᎤᏂᏍᏚᎭ, unisduha, "closed", with its opposite (using the suffix meaning "un-", i) becoming ᎤᏂᏍᏚᎢᏓ, unisduida, "un-closed" (eg., "open"). Further, you can specify intent or frequency with other such suffixes -- ga at the end will mean "purposefully", causing this verb to become ᎬᏴᏂᎦ, gvyuniga, "I hit you intentionally"'; sda likewise will indicate something accidentally happening, giving ᎬᏴᏂᏍᏓ, gvyvnisda, "I hit you accidentally". Hi can mean "repetition", thus ᎬᏴᏂᎯ, gvyvnihi is "I keep hitting you", and if you want to go completely Ike Turner, these suffixes combine -- ᎬᏴᏂᎯᎦ, gvyvnihiga, "I keep on intentionally hitting you".
And indeed, you get very specific verbs this way -- ᏣᎪᏢᏍᏙᏗᏛ, tsagotlvsdohdidv, is a good example.
Ꮳ tsa - You (subject)
ᎪᏢ gotlv - Turn around (root)
ᏍᏗ sdi - Infinitive marker
Ꮩ doh - "By means of"
Ꮫ dv - Reassurance
One could say this verbs means, "You ought to turn around; by doing so, things will be okay" (for example, if the person is lost). The infinitive marker suggests a "you ought to ..." concept here (somewhat like the use of the infinitive in English in a sentence like, "You are to go straight home!"), and the rest adds extra meanings and notions to the verb, making it grow exponentially but giving something that's really hard to explain in English without making it sound clunky or awkward, and some of what's implied here is not something one can explain in English, especially if one expects a 1:1 coorelation between the languages. Regardless, these make for some very efficient specific words, eliminating the need for things like a passive verb (as who's doing what to whom in what manner is always explained and clear in Cherokee through use of prefixes and suffixes onto the root).
Of course there's the problem of remembering which order these prefixes and suffixes go in (because there's a specific order to go in), which form to use (as there are multiple forms of several of these), which meaning these particles lend ("doh" can mean the likes of "scatter", "purpose of", "a while", "with difficulty", "by means of", etc.), and I have a hard time grasping these. I don't know, for example, why the sdi infinitive was split in the above example of "turning around" -- does that S stay and everything "add on"? Is the "s" there just to ease pronunciation? I don't know, and these frequent spelling changes and inflections are really kicking my ass. ^^;;;;
I find the specific nature of the Cherokee verb, regardless, to be fascinating, and a wonderful contrast to the likes of verbs in Japanese. While in both languages one verb can be a whole sentence, the Japanese verb often relies completely upon context in order to be understood -- あるか？, Aru ka?, can be "Do you have it?", "Is it there?" "Does it exist?", "Do I/we/they have it?", etc. Indeed, they can become more specific, but that's not required in Japanese, whereas its Cherokee equivalent would need to be something far more specific in person -- like tsaneatsu?, "Do you have it?", ᏣᏁᎠᏧ.
A good example of a simpler "buildup" would be ᎤᏂᏍᏚᎭ, unisduha, "closed", with its opposite (using the suffix meaning "un-", i) becoming ᎤᏂᏍᏚᎢᏓ, unisduida, "un-closed" (eg., "open"). Further, you can specify intent or frequency with other such suffixes -- ga at the end will mean "purposefully", causing this verb to become ᎬᏴᏂᎦ, gvyuniga, "I hit you intentionally"'; sda likewise will indicate something accidentally happening, giving ᎬᏴᏂᏍᏓ, gvyvnisda, "I hit you accidentally". Hi can mean "repetition", thus ᎬᏴᏂᎯ, gvyvnihi is "I keep hitting you", and if you want to go completely Ike Turner, these suffixes combine -- ᎬᏴᏂᎯᎦ, gvyvnihiga, "I keep on intentionally hitting you".
And indeed, you get very specific verbs this way -- ᏣᎪᏢᏍᏙᏗᏛ, tsagotlvsdohdidv, is a good example.
Ꮳ tsa - You (subject)
ᎪᏢ gotlv - Turn around (root)
ᏍᏗ sdi - Infinitive marker
Ꮩ doh - "By means of"
Ꮫ dv - Reassurance
One could say this verbs means, "You ought to turn around; by doing so, things will be okay" (for example, if the person is lost). The infinitive marker suggests a "you ought to ..." concept here (somewhat like the use of the infinitive in English in a sentence like, "You are to go straight home!"), and the rest adds extra meanings and notions to the verb, making it grow exponentially but giving something that's really hard to explain in English without making it sound clunky or awkward, and some of what's implied here is not something one can explain in English, especially if one expects a 1:1 coorelation between the languages. Regardless, these make for some very efficient specific words, eliminating the need for things like a passive verb (as who's doing what to whom in what manner is always explained and clear in Cherokee through use of prefixes and suffixes onto the root).
Of course there's the problem of remembering which order these prefixes and suffixes go in (because there's a specific order to go in), which form to use (as there are multiple forms of several of these), which meaning these particles lend ("doh" can mean the likes of "scatter", "purpose of", "a while", "with difficulty", "by means of", etc.), and I have a hard time grasping these. I don't know, for example, why the sdi infinitive was split in the above example of "turning around" -- does that S stay and everything "add on"? Is the "s" there just to ease pronunciation? I don't know, and these frequent spelling changes and inflections are really kicking my ass. ^^;;;;
I find the specific nature of the Cherokee verb, regardless, to be fascinating, and a wonderful contrast to the likes of verbs in Japanese. While in both languages one verb can be a whole sentence, the Japanese verb often relies completely upon context in order to be understood -- あるか？, Aru ka?, can be "Do you have it?", "Is it there?" "Does it exist?", "Do I/we/they have it?", etc. Indeed, they can become more specific, but that's not required in Japanese, whereas its Cherokee equivalent would need to be something far more specific in person -- like tsaneatsu?, "Do you have it?", ᏣᏁᎠᏧ.