Posts about Reisu every Monday and Thursday

Monday, August 30, 2010

Kinship Terms

There are many kinship terms in Reisu. Most of them come from four roots: Data for father, mama for mother, gati for child and yoti for sibling.

If there are more than one siblings being discussed, or there is a need to differentiate which sibling we can do this many ways. We can divide it by gender saying yotikipa for a sister or yotigatu for a brother. It can also be divided by age, this is usually done with numbers with 1 being the oldest. So yotiha would be the oldest yoti being discussed.

Gati can be used in the same way: gatikipa for daughter, gatigatu for son, gatiha for oldest child, gatitu for second child, etc. Unlike daughter in English gatikipa can be used to refer to any female child, not just ones in relation to their parent. Gatigatu is the same way.

To refer to someone of one generation away we can use the suffix -dua, similarly to how we use 'grand' in English. So datadua is grand father, mamadua is grand mother, gatidua is grand child.

There are some kinship terms that don't use these roots. Most notably koko, which refers to a spouse. Often times this is used as a term of endearment via adding the -xai suffix. Kokoxai is a term of endearment only used in long term relationships.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Colors: Saturation and Brightness

I've posted the color words before. These words describe the hues of color, or what we would think of as the colors of the rainbow. We can also talk about the saturation and brightness of colors.

Saturation is how vivid or pale a particular color is. The scale of this is described with the words raxi for high saturation, and hili for low saturation. Here are some examples where the word is the color being discussed.

Lanu-raxi
Akari-hili

Note: These translations of the words raxi and hili is only in regards to color. They can be used to discribe light as well, but they do not mean saturated. They mean the level of light, similar to bright/dim.

Brightness is how dark or light a particular color is. The scale is described with the words Peibu and Hexi. These are also the words for white and block respectively. So the close to white the color is the more bright it is.

Afi-peibu
Itaka-hexi

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Group of

Gei is a prefix particle that means 'group of'. It functions similarly to yei and tei. It's most commonly used in numbers. For example geitu is a twosome or a couple; geivi is a threesome; geisa is a foursome; geixotu is a dozen; etc etc.

Gei can also be used in other ways!

Geikomodenusa - A litter of kittens
Geihakaxasa - A circle of friends
Geibiho[muka]sa - Cattle
Geixudosa - A school of fish

A plural is always required when gei- is being used with a non-number word, generally a noun. -Sa is most common, but if we want to draw attention to the individuals in the group being different we can use -sai.

Geihemodosai - A group of unique individuals (people)
Geixudosai - A school of fishes

Monday, August 16, 2010

Counting Days - part two

This is a follow up to the original counting days entry. We're going to discuss the words for relative days.

The word for day is Nopu, which is where all of these words are derived. To say today we can simply add the demonstrative suffix -ru. This translates literally as "this day", which is the equivalent to today in English.

Similarly yesterday is Nopu+la, or "past day". Tomorrow is Nopu+fu, or "future day".

Nopuru - Today
Nopula - Yesterday
Nopufu - Tomorrow

We can use similar constructions to say expressions like "day before yesterday". In Reisu this would be Nopulatu, "day-past-two".

We can use these same constructions for other time words like month or year. The nopu in brackets are not required if it's obvious by the context that we aren't talking about the literal sun and moon.

[Nopu]rigila - Last year
[Nopu]lakifu - Next month
Koxukusifutu - Two weeks from now

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Tua & Pua

Tua and pua are two special affixes that can be attached to all sorts of things.

Pua functions the same way -able does in English.

Atasa timi ya vutipua lo emodohaa po vato amuhe.
Cups low and reachable to everyone inside room food.
The cups are low and reachable to everyone in the cafeteria.

Tua means to cause or make something. So the word for blue, lanu, can become lanutua and mean 'to make blue'. Tua can also be used to create stylistic differences. This example is a bit morbid, but kill means to cause death. The words for kill and die are zopo and zato respectively. But you could just as easily say zatotua, and it would mean the same thing as zopo.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Asking yes/no questions

We talked about some question words back in February, but that doesn't cover all the types of questions you may need to ask.

For example we can turn any sentence into a question by adding 'nei' at the end.

Ei zopola ziti
I killed the bug.
O zopola ziti nei?
You killed the bug?

If you want to imply that the answer is yes we can change the verb to it's positive form.

O izopola ziti nei?
You killed the bug right?
Izopola.
I did.

If you want to imply that the answer is no we can change the verb to it's negative form.

O uzopola ziti nei?
You didn't kill the bug did you?
E... izopola. ...Oxida.
Um... I did. ...Sorry.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Olisa Ajinosa

Today we're going to talk about facial expressions! Facial expressions are called olisa ajinosa, types of faces.

There aren't words for specific expressions like a smile or a frown in Reisu. Instead we can say 'aji ida', or 'happy face'. We can also say 'Aji upa' or 'sad face'.

Leika aji ida! Make a happy face!
Make face happy!

Aji upa bei? Why the long face?
Face sad why?

Kuxadu aji ono idogi lo e. Don't get angry with him.
Don't-turn face 2PSingPoss angry to 3PSing.

Most obvious in the third example, it's more common in Reisu to talk about having a certain face than feeling the emotion itself. For example it would be better to say 'leika aji ida', 'make a happy face', than to say 'geki ida' (think happy, feel happy, or be happy).

You can also have aji imo, scared face; aji yifa, scary face; or aji haha, laughing face.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Don't unplug me

I've become absolutely obsessed with this song. It's so cute! So I translated the chorus.

Don’t unplug me
or just shut me down
Please just love me
with your steel heart
I’d reboot you
If you’d look at me
With those cold eyes
One more time

Literal translation:
Kujulize ei
Don't-NEG-power me
ro xadu yu vua ei
or turn down just me
Bega rulu vua ei
Please love just me
ja muaho feta ono
with heart steel your
Ei zijasi o
I would-refresh you
Ta o zihoki lo ei
If you would-look toward me
ja etarosavo fuxu
with eyes-those cold
yeihago
time-one-more

Translation trying to match the meter:
Kujulize
ro xadu yu ei
Rulu vua ei
ja muaho feta
Zijasi o
Ta o oki ei
ja oki fuxu
yeihago