Lesson of Iki: view article

Atoato nadefa, saini a uke!
Welcome, good guy/gal!

Saimoho na in tahiviti a Jute a kiovif a havani, haa?
Interested in some true Jutean?

Then keep reading, and you'll soon find yourself speaking some sentences of this language that you'll actually have some use for, unlike some other guides, where you might find stuff like "How old are you?", "She is a woman" or "The bear eats rice with knife and fork"

I mean, who cares about your age anyway, and usually it'll be obvious enough who someone is. Let's go over some sentences you'd actually be likely to desperately need to be able to say in the coastal tongue if you happen to find yourself in some place of rural Jute that has no speakers of other languages.

Kiovi a 1.1: No ehi tehivu!
Chapter 1.1: It's urgent!

Now imagine you've been tramping all over the island, always marveling at the stunning, age-old rainforests on the one side and maybe a river or the sea at the other side. After a whole day of this in tropical heat, you start to notice you're in dire need of something you unfortunately couldn't carry easily with you. Having finally arrived in a smaller settlement, your first dialogue could go like this:

Na: Dekki, no vailisaa hen, haan?
You: Hello, be shower here, where?
You: Hello, where is a shower here?
Saini: Dekki! Oo, no vailisaa ade mihonafade jaman!
Person: Hello! Oh, be shower at community hall there!
Person: Hello! Oh, a shower is at the community hall there!

With this small exchange, no need to learn all forms of greetings first before moving to real sentences, you have already learned a lot about the basic structure of a typical Jutean sentence.
This is important, since the proper word order is often essential to prevent misunderstandings.
But fortunately it is rather straightforward in most cases and therefore rather easy to remember:

1. Interjection	2. Verb or verbs	3. Subject	4. Object or objects	5. Adverbs	6. Question word, separated by comma
Dekki	no	vailisaa	/	hen	, haan?

You now can even already see how questions are asked and answered: simply by taking a normal sentence and adding a question particle at the end. You can raise your voice to emphasize this, but it's not required.

Speaking of voice, the pronunciation of Jute will most likely strike you as easy as well, since almost always you can guess the pronunciation of a word from its written form.

There are 5 vowels:
Aa /ɐ/ Ee /e/ Ii /i/ Oo /ɑ/ Uu /u/

And 11 consonants:
Dd /d/ Ff /f/ Hh /h/ Jj /j/ Kk /k/
Ll /l/ Mm /m/ Nn/n/¹ Ss /s/² Tt /t/
Vv /ʋ/

¹ sometimes spoken as /ŋ/
² sometimes spoken as /ʃ/

Practice your knowledge by exchanging vailisaa with words for other things you might need:

mihinon bed
tunasaava bathroom
hemen market

You can find more in the dictionary.

Dekki, no ___ hen, haan?
Hello, be ____ here, where?
Hello, where is the ___?

Now, you might get an answer you don't easily understand.

In this case you can say this:
Mohomoho, uke. Nojok nuhe me-ta-ma, haa?
Excuse me, please. Point-could for me, haa?
Excuse me. Point me, please?

As you can see, aside from question particles, there are some other important words that go at the end of the sentence, separated by the comma. Notice also how the -k at the end of a verb like nojo (to show) can, together with the proper question word (haa for simple yes/no questions), easily make a polite request from a normal sentence.

If you have finally found what you were looking for, you can simply express your thankfulness with uke again.

Kiovi 1.2: He, haan-li?
Chapter 1.2: Where to now?

todehentohi / to follow

Kiovi 1.3: Dekio na he ta, haa?
Chapter 1.3: Do you understand me?

todehentohi / to follow

Kiovi 1.4: Hemehi
Chapter 1.4: Eating

todehentohi / to follow

Check back later for more! ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article

Comments