Re: Wallisian (faka'uvea)
Posted: 2012-11-17, 20:07
I'm back for more Wallisian... and today I made a huge step in my learning process.
A few weeks ago, I was able to find the only textbook for Wallisian, "Parler Wallisien" by linguist Karl Rensch (2002). Just having that book in itself is very valuable to learn Wallisian, but it is a bit outdated and has a too grammar-centered approach that I don't really like. But it has some practice conversations recorded (yay !)
But today, I had my first Facebook chat with a Wallisian living in Wallis ! It was excellent, because he spoke to me like any wallisian, so I struggled quite a lot...but that's how you get out of your comfort zone ! Actually, I was surprised to see that I could have a true conversation '(even if full of mistakes)
Here are some useful words I learned :
aho katoa : all day long / the entire day
at some point, there was a problem with the internet connection : "kovi elo osi te neti"
kovi elo : rotten, rubbish (fam).
te neti : the internet (comes from the English word "net" >> neti.
on the internet : i te neti.
My name is : ko toku higoa ko [name]
His/her name is : ko tona higoa ko [name]
Personal pronouns are quite complicated, because Wallisian distinguishes between 'o and 'a possession (a feature in many Polynesian languages), between definite and "indefinite" article; for the plural, you also need to distinguish between plural and dual, and exclusive and inclusive.
I have no idea how they remember the use of each pronoun... that's one tricky aspects of faka'uvea !
In a later post, I'll explain how to express time - stay tuned !
A few weeks ago, I was able to find the only textbook for Wallisian, "Parler Wallisien" by linguist Karl Rensch (2002). Just having that book in itself is very valuable to learn Wallisian, but it is a bit outdated and has a too grammar-centered approach that I don't really like. But it has some practice conversations recorded (yay !)
But today, I had my first Facebook chat with a Wallisian living in Wallis ! It was excellent, because he spoke to me like any wallisian, so I struggled quite a lot...but that's how you get out of your comfort zone ! Actually, I was surprised to see that I could have a true conversation '(even if full of mistakes)
Here are some useful words I learned :
aho katoa : all day long / the entire day
at some point, there was a problem with the internet connection : "kovi elo osi te neti"
kovi elo : rotten, rubbish (fam).
te neti : the internet (comes from the English word "net" >> neti.
on the internet : i te neti.
My name is : ko toku higoa ko [name]
His/her name is : ko tona higoa ko [name]
Personal pronouns are quite complicated, because Wallisian distinguishes between 'o and 'a possession (a feature in many Polynesian languages), between definite and "indefinite" article; for the plural, you also need to distinguish between plural and dual, and exclusive and inclusive.
I have no idea how they remember the use of each pronoun... that's one tricky aspects of faka'uvea !
In a later post, I'll explain how to express time - stay tuned !