Wodenscild

Gods it has been a while since I did the last post. Brain has been a bit weird, and dealing imposter syndrome with linguistics and languages has really kicked me which has made it difficult to keep up with vocabulary. But! Grammar is less stressful, and Nawatl is chock full of it! Which Chapters 5 and 6 of Yan Garcia's "Learn Nahuatl" tells us about!

Chapter 5 is covering commands, aka imperatives. Imperatives in Nawatl actually take on a lot of uses outside of just commands. Direct commands, those that are aimed towards a 2nd person, are formed with xi-, with -kan added in the plural! So tikochi/inkochih "You/Yall's sleep" will become xikochi(kan) "Sleep! (pl.)". Often times where English would soften their commands, Nawatl does not! But if a command does need to be softened there are options!

• on-: meaning quickly, or right away! E.g. xinokochi "Go sleep"
• welis: meaning "is it possible?" or "could you...?" E.g. welis xikochi "Could you sleep?"

Indirect commands are those that have a 1st or 3rd person subject! They have the same sense of obligation that direct commands do! And are formed with a particle ma, and -kan for the plural!

• Ma nikochi "I should sleep"
• Ma kochi "He/she/it/they need to sleep"
• Ma tikochikan "Let's sleep"
• Ma kochikan "They need to sleep"
  Outside of this, they actually are used to subordinate a clause when there is a request or wish, and the matrix clause has a different subject!
• Kineki ma nikochi "She wants me to sleep"
• *Nikineki ma nikochi (intended: "I want to sleep" - Nikineki nikochi I think would be the right construction)

Chapter 6 brings us to existential and more on the copula! To start! The copula! Now in previous posts, saying something like "They are turtles" - Ayomeh, it would be done by inflecting the noun like a verb! HOWEVER! THIS IS ACTUALLY ONLY TRUE IN THE PRESENT TENSE! In other tenses, an independent verb is used! But... the noun is still inflected as well? THIS IS ANOTHER POINT IN THE NOUNS ARE ACTUALLY A SUBCLASS OF VERBS COLOMN! Anyway, the non-present copulas we are introduced to are:

• eliyaya "used to be": Nieliyaya nimomachtihketl "I used to be a student"
• elki "was": Nielki nimomachtihketl "I was a student"
• elis "will be": Nielis nimomachtihketl "I will be a student"
• eliskia "would be": Nieliskia nimomachtihketl "I would be a student"

While in English, the copula and the existential is the same, "to be", in Nawatl they are governed by different verbs! And Nawatl has 3 different exxistential verbs: itstok, eltok, and onkah! Itstok and eltok function the same! They are used to say that something exists somewhere! The only difference is that the former is for animates, and the latter for inanimates!

• Nikan itstok chichi "Here is a dog/There is a dog here"
• Nikan eltok se amoxtli "Here is a book/There is a book here"
  Onkah on the other hand is used to say something exists in general! And doesn't care about their subject's animacy!
• Onkah chichimeh! "There are dogs!"
• Onkah ohmeh "There are roads"

Even tho this study has been playing into a lot of stress and anxiety, I still love it so much! And gods learning about it in any way just tickles my brain in so many different ways! I hope everyone else found this stuff interesting, and are having an amazing day! And always, never let the bastards keep you down!

When languages come into contact, they can share many things. It can start off with words, typically nouns and verbs and the likes, and over time through deep contact and bilingualism you can start seeing grammar being borrowed too (in what is called a language area, or Sprachbund- some famous ones of these include the European Sprachbund, with French and German at the centre; the Altaic Sprachbund, which is what caused the entire controversy with the large Altaic language-family model, including the modern Altaic languages of Mongolic, Tungusic, and Turkic languages, as well as the Koreanic languages, Japonic languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, among others iirc; and the Mesoamerican Sprachbund which includes Nawatl and its kin, the wide span of Mayan languages, among others)!

Now something that doesn't often get loaned between languages are words from closed classes, groups of words that don't readily accept new members. These are typically things like adpositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and for this post: numbers. Kalaallisut is one of the three Indigenous languages of Greenland, or Kalaallit Nunaat, alongside Inuktun (North Greenlandic) and Tunumiisut (East Greenlandic). For an Indigenous language, it is holding really strong too! It is the sole official language of Kalaallit Nunaat (whether this will impact the other two languages in the same way languages like Indonesian and Tok Pisin has remains to be seen), has a steady speaker base, and is used in most areas of life! Kalaallit Nunaat for a long while was under the colonial control of Denmark (and still is considered a dominion of it, alongside the Faroe Islands). With colonialism inevitably comes language contact and exchange, and has resulted in Kalaallisut gaining a new number system.

In most contexts, the numbers 1-12 used are native to Kalaallisut (Danish equiv in brackets):
0 - noor'lu
1 - ataaseq (en)
2 - marluk (to)
3 - pingasut (tre)
4 - sisamat (fire)
5 - tallimat (fem)
6 - arfinillit (seks)
7 - arfineq-marluk (syb)
8 - arfineq-pingasut (otte)
9 - qulingiluat (ni)
10 - qulit (ti)
11 - aqqaneq/aqqanillit (elleve)
12 - aqqaneq-marluk (tolv)

When talking about prices tho, the Danish numbers are used. Which on the surface makes sense in regards to domains of use of different languages, how numerals from one language may be prefered with contexts related to that language, while in other contexts the others are used. HOWEVER! Past 12 all numbers are Danish loans, and that includes all of the oddities of that pseudo-base-20 numbering system as well. And this is not because Kalaallisut historically lacked these numbers, related languages like Inuktitut have full number systems (cos obvi). So this is just strange how this has happened! I am not completely sure of the history which caused this to occur. Maybe something to do with colonial schooling systems? But then again numbers aren't often lost like this.

Oh! Also a lot of these words loaned from Danish retain Danish pronunciations and orthography, which works completely differently from Kalaallisut's. Normally languages in long contact will nativise the pronunciation of loan words, so it is interesting this hasn't happened here. Maybe language contact and bilingualism has been so strong that loaned pronunciations have been retained? Idk- I will hopefully learn about dichronic proccesses of language change next semester with my historical linguistics unit. Needless to say, the language situation of Kalaallisut is fascinating!

If anyone wants to study the language, there is a free 2-part introductory course here: https://learngreenlandic.com/online/?lang=eng - it is an absolute treat to learn and listen to, and is one of the most beautiful languages in the world dare I say! This wasn't too indepth or insightful, but I hope this was interesting! I hope everyone is keeping well!