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Native Grammar |
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Native Grammar
as spoken by the
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Teyewënônya'khahkwa' Ökwe'öwékhá'
he
Niënötwënötha'
ne
Hënökwe'ôwe
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Why Grammar ? | Writing and Pronunciation |
The Sentence | The Word |
Glossary | Additional Sources | Translations | Feedback |
Make the Most of a Limited Vocabulary
Using some basic grammar, you can maximize the use
of every single word (or word-root) you know.
It enables you to construct many different
conjugations and formations,
and create many different shades of meaning, which
accommodates for many different situations.
Easy to Handle Long Words (both Recognize and Remember)
The Iroquois languages (and, in fact, quite a great few
of Native American languages) tend to have very long
words. At first glance, they appear as a long stretch of
arbitrary syllables. However, knowing grammar, the listener
(or reader) can recognize the structure of the word, and perhaps
understand most of it.
Example:
The Mingo name for West-Virginia is
«Työtahsehtahkwa'ke».
At first glance it might seem like a tongue twister.
However, knowing some basic grammar, we can easily recognize the following struture:
"T +
y + öt + ahseht + (a) + hkw + (a) + ' + ke"
(the letters in parenthesis are linking vowels),
which means
"at (the place where) one does
'ahseht'
there".
This is accomplished even without knowing the meaning of the main verb
"-ahseht-".
This means that all you have to remember is the word
"-ahseht-",
and the structure "at where one
'-ahseht-'s
there".
By the way, it turns out that
"-ahseht-"
means "to hide", and the
entire word means "at (the place) where one hides there",
or simply "(at the) Hiding Place" (the West Virginia mountains were used
as a refuge place for the Mingo people in the area).
I based my site (the one you are reading right now) on knowledge from the Mingo EGADS site and its related mingo-l mailing-list. For the most part, I just organized the knowledge differently.
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