Chíetoaı kọneı – Lesson 9

Kaqgaı súq ba. Hıa ní móq? ①	Look! What is that?
Kaqjua ní da. ②	That is strange-looking.
Chı jí, ꝡä poq ní da. Kúo bu dua jí, ꝡä tao ní hí raı da. ③	I believe that is a person. But I don’t know what they are doing.
Keoı úmo ní ba.	Let us talk to it.
Hıo ka. ④	Hello.
Jadı.	Hi.
Ma poq súq móq?	Are you a person?
Nho! ⑤	Yes!
Obe! Chua hí raı súq móq?	Oh! What is your name?
Mı Boko jí da! ⑥	I am Boko!
Ma bu gıam súq moq?	Do you not move?
Guosıa, ꝡä gıam mí Boko da! ⑦	Boko never moves!
Luaı súq da.	You are funny.
Kıjı! ⑧	Thank you!

Notes

Hıa is a question verb, and can be translated with “is what?”. Hıa ní moq? “What is this?”, “What is that?”.
The compound kaqjua “to be strange-looking” contains a familiar component, kaq, which means “visual”, “pertaining to vision”. You met this as part of kaqgaı “to see”. jua means “strange”, so kaqjua is something that looks strange.
Here we meet another example of ꝡä. The phrase poq ní means “this is a person”, so ꝡä poq ní means “that this is a person”. Chı jí, ꝡä poq ní means “I think that this is a person”. In the second sentence, we see the content clause ꝡä tao ní hí raı, which contains a question word. Such content clauses are called indirect questions, because they are used to talk about questions rather than directly asking them oneself. ꝡä tao ní hí raı translates to the indirect question “what this is doing”, so the full sentence Bu dua jí, ꝡä tao ní hí raı da means “I don’t know what this is doing”.
The word ka is a family member of da, moq and ba. Its appearance at the end of a sentence indicates that the sentence is true by virtue of being uttered. A common example of such a sentence in English would be “I now pronounce you husband and wife”. A good general translation of ka into English would be “hereby”. hıo means “to greet (someone)”, thus Hıo ka has the literal meaning “Hereby, there is greeting”, which is a common way to say “hello” in Toaq. A slightly longer version is Hıo jí ka “Hereby, I greet”, or Hıo jí súq ka “Hereby, I greet you”. You can also say jadı, which is an interjection meaning “hello” or “hi”.
Nho is an affirmative interjection, which can be translated as “yes”.
The word mı is used to create name verbs. mı NAME is a verb meaning “to be named NAME”. mı Boko “to be named Boko”, mı Boko jí “I am named Boko”.
Here we see the name verb mı Boko turned into a noun via the rising tone . mı Boko “to be named Boko”, mí Boko “that which is named Boko”.
Kıjı is an interjection meaning “thank you”.

Exercises

Translate:

Keoı déo máma da. “The child talks to the mother.”
Guosıa, ꝡä keoı déo máma da. “The child never talks to the mother.”
Tao kúne sá jua da. “The dog does something strange.”
Luaı, ꝡä bu cho kúne súq da. “It is funny that the dog does not like you.”
Ma zao súq mí Sara móq? “Do you know Sara?”

Fill in the blanks:

“I don’t know at what place I am.” Bu dua jí, ꝡä tı jí hí rıaq da.
“They talk to Amira.” Keoı hó mí Amıra da.
“What is the name of the dog?” Chua hí raı kúne móq?
“I see something funny.” Kaqgaı jí sá luaı da.
“You do nothing that’s good.” Tao súq sía gı da.