Ah, i didn't know that that's where those days came from.
Today i came across a sentence with a bunch of verbs that are giving me troubles:
"Orduan, gizakiak, ostera ere, Ama-Lurrari eskatu zioten argi gehiago zukeen eta iluntasuna garai zezakeen zerbait eman ziezaien."
Then, men once again asked Mother Earth to give them (past subjunctive?) something that would have (past conditional) increased the light and that could (past potential) conquer the darkness.
I'm not sure if i've understood that sentence properly. And i thought the past of luke would be lukeen, not zukeen? If i wrote it in the present tense, would it look like this:
"Orduan, gizakiak, ostera ere, Ama-Lurrari eskatzen diote argi gehiago luke eta iluntasuna garai dezakeen zerbait eman diezaien"? And i could avoid the subjunctive altogether by using "emateko", right?
I'm finding i can get through sentences more and more easily, but i keep stumbling across these monster sentences, it seems it's the past tense stuff that really makes my head hurt. I can pick a lot up from context, eg. the subjunctive in there. When i first read the sentence, i just thought to myself "This is definitely nor-nori-nork in the past tense, i dunno what mood, but it can only be Ama-Lurra giving something to the men, so..." and just skipped over the components of the word entirely
EDIT: Also, i keep seeing "gizakiak" used with a plural transitive verb, like in the sentence above. Should it not be "gizakiek ... eskatu zioten" or "gizakiak ... eskatu zion"?
EDIT2: Another question: "Izena 'gentil' hitz latindarretik dator, eta horrela deritzoten pertsona fedegabeei." Deritzoten seems incorrect to me, shouldn't it be
zeritz
eten or deritzete? They called them, not they called it, right?