2017 Powwow Archive

[księżycowy]

Here's my thread for the 2017 NAIL Powwow.

I'm currently learn Seneca through video conference classes, and will probably try to write up a little story or poem for the NAILC here. I don't know a ton about the grammar yet, so I don't know how much I'll analyze things as I go. I'll definitely translate though. I'll also post what I learn from my class and other resources here. This thread will mostly be for the Powwow story/poem.


EDIT: So I just got my textbook for Pribilof Aleut, and I'm loving it immensely. And, as I've had a think for Eskimo-Aleut languages for a long as time, I figure it's time to endulge that a bit. Not to mention a few of us are doing multiple NAILs for the Powwow this year.

I don't want to go too crazy, but I'm also thinking of adding in some Colville-Okanagan Salish too. Maybe. We'll see. Seneca is the high priority here, as I'm taking a course on it, so you know.

[Multiturquoise]

As far as you know, I'm starting Cree (y-dialect) for NAILC Powwow.

What I already know are:
Nothing.

Tânisi. Bora nitisiyihkâson. Torki ohci niya. İstanbul niwîkin.
Hello. My name is Bora. I'm from Turkey. I live in Istanbul.

[vijayjohn]

This is my thread for the 2017-2018 NAIL Powwow. I intend to start off with Lnuismk (it's more widely known in English as "Micmac," but I hate calling it that) and Michif. I might add a few more languages (like EVERYTHING ELSE HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA or at least Seneca), but I'm learning these two languages anyway, so...there they are!

[księżycowy]

What about Mi'gmaq (or any of those other variations)?

[vijayjohn]

Those are...better, but...still kind of weird since in the language itself, it's the plural form of the ethnonym, not a word referring to the language. Mi'kmawi'simk is better; I find Lnuismk a little more specific, though, since it means the variety spoken in Nova Scotia, which is the one I'm trying to focus on.

[vijayjohn]

I've been learning Michif, which is largely Plains Cree anyway, so maybe I can help!

[vijayjohn]

I've started finished a round of reviewing my vocabulary in Lnuismk this time around and learned how to say 'hi' in Seneca as well. I need to remember the following terms somehow:

awa'qi'kn 'crooked knife'
waqa'qanikn - either a variant of or an alternative to the above
kalqwasiet 'sunset'
waqame'k 'clean'

Because I'm having so much trouble remembering them, even though I know waqnji'j is literally 'little knife'. Dumb mnemonic time!

I guess I could imagine Donald Duck carrying a knife and suddenly finding it to be crooked and going "a-WAAAK!" (him doing something like this on Ducktales is plausible ). Then he tries to straighten it out and goes "eeeeEEE" and then pushes it into place going "...[gn̩]!"

Then I could imagine an alternative Donald Duck (an imposter has appeared in an issue of Donald Duck before) witnessing what just happened and going "wak! Ahhh..." (waqa'...), then noticing that the knife in his gunny (...qani...) sack is also not quite straight, so he goes "[gn̩]!" as he straightens it out as well: waqa'qanikn!

The sunset is the "mouth" to "tomorrow," "yet" does not signal the arrival of a new day. 'Tomorrow' (and 'yesterday') in Hindi and Urdu is [kəl], and 'mouth' in Pashto is something like [ɣwaʐ]. Lnuismk doesn't have [ʐ]; closest thing it has to that is [z], so if you put those together, you get [kalɣwaz], and then combined with "yet," you get kalqwasiet.

If I get someone to make things clean, then that is work I make. (Also, the first syllable looks a bit like the word for 'knife', I guess, so it could have something to do with cleaning stuff off a surface that I cut with a knife? Idk ).

All four of these words must break down morphologically somehow. But oh well.

[vijayjohn]

I think I'll have to come up with some more mnemonics for Michif, too! That language is always so damn hard for me to review. I guess I could use something like "miss spoon (is shoveling snow...or something)" in a faux-German accent to remember mishpoun 'it's snowing' and "gimme one (drop of rainwater)" for kimiwan 'it's raining'. For yootin 'it's windy', I could imagine the wind going yoo and a tin can getting blown over.

Kishinaaw 'it's cold' and kizhitew 'it's hot' aren't that hard. It's like the Turkish word kişi combined with the Thai word for 'cold' (in the case of kishinaaw) or the word in some Mayan languages for 'cold' (in the case of kizhitew!). But what to do with ikwaashkwan [ˈwaːʃeːʃˌkwən] 'it's cloudy'? I guess something like the Hindi words wahaan + shesh + 滾 (gǔn in Mandarin Chinese)...'there end boil/fuck off'. Like, the end result of rain is there, as a result of evaporation, which also is what happens when you boil liquid, so all the liquid can fuck off. Omg I think that's working!

As for miiyoukiishikaw 'good weather' and machi kiishigaw 'bad weather', I've come up with a portmanteau of quiche + hoosegow as a mnemonic for the 'weather' part (kiishigaw?)...idk, the weather is like an unpredictable prison where it could be raining French pastry crusts for all you know. Then good weather is mieux kiishikaw, you know, like better kiishikaw! And bad weather is much kiishigaw, but of course with an [ɪ] in between so it's easier to pronounce.

[vijayjohn]

Well, I guess I'll be learning some Seneca, too!

[vijayjohn]

All right, so it looks like I've ended up adding Chinook Jargon, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Tlingit to the mix, too! I'm just trying to learn one or two new terms at a time, as with Seneca.

In Chinook Jargon, one term that's obviously familiar to me is potlatch, which nowadays can mean a potluck or sometimes just giving stuff to your friends. It comes from the Nuu-chah-nulth verb paɬaˑč 'to make a ceremonial gift in a potlatch'. Tillicum means 'people' in Chinook Jargon (from Lower Chinook); the equivalent in Nuu-chah-nulth appears to be aht. In Tlingit, daa means 'what', daa sáyá means 'what is this', tás means 'thread', and tás áyá means 'this is thread'.

And in Seneca, I have come across do:gës, gadö'gweta' and learned that nya:wëh literally means 'thank you'. (I think I'll review that soon).

[księżycowy]

That's the easy stuff, Vijay! Do some digging around in Seneca!

[vijayjohn]

But easy stuff is what I'm doing in all those languages! It's not particularly easy when you're doing it simultaneously in like 25 languages.

[księżycowy]

Lame.

[vijayjohn]

Thank goodness, I was afraid you'd react a lot more strongly than that.

[księżycowy]

I have very high expectations for you're learning of Seneca! I expect you to become fluent and write me an awesome textbook (modeled after Wadewayestanih). Complete with audio! All within a week.

Get to it!

[dEhiN]

I have very high expectations for you're learning of Seneca! I expect you to become fluent and write me an awesome textbook (modeled after Wadewayestanih). Complete with audio! All within a week.

Get to it!

A week is being too generous for him! Give him only 3 days. After all, he's got an MA in Linguistics and is doing a billion language simultaneously. He should be able to do this in his sleep.

[księżycowy]

You're on to something!
I'll give you until last night, Vijay!

[vijayjohn]

I already did, sweetheart. I'm secretly the mastermind behind that website for Seneca. (Not the web design part, though. The Seneca themselves are way better at that, as well as at their own language ).

[dEhiN]

I already did, sweetheart. I'm secretly the mastermind behind that website for Seneca. (Not the web design part, though. The Seneca themselves are way better at that, as well as at their own language ).

So then what did you do?

[vijayjohn]

I already did, sweetheart. I'm secretly the mastermind behind that website for Seneca. (Not the web design part, though. The Seneca themselves are way better at that, as well as at their own language ).

So then what did you do?

You know, put everything together, organized it, stuff like that. I wrote a book, too, but it's under revision.