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.

Coming and going

Let's talk about some verbs today :) I'm going to explain some basic words of movement: come, leave, go and stop.

Daxi means come. For example: 'daxi leru', come here; 'daxi lo ei', come to me; 'daxi po le' or 'daxi po', come inside; or 'ei daxidu', I have come (I'm here). I also say this to my dog as another word for come. Daxi nebu!

Opposite of daxi is kaxi for leave. It's better in Reisu to say 'kaxi' instead of 'go away' or 'get out'. You can use kaxi very similarly to daxi. 'Kaxi leru', leave this place (go away); 'kaxi pe', go outside (get out); or 'kaxi lo vato ono!', go to your room!.

The word for go is yata. It doesn't have the same structure of meanings as the English 'go' though, and you can't really use it to mean 'leave' when discussing people or things. The meaning of yata is to move, proceed, pass or elapse. Some phrases would be 'Eisa yatanu vori hata!', we're going so fast!; 'kata yatala yude nopuvo', time passed slowly that day; or 'O liyata', you may go (It's your turn).

And since we have go, let's talk about it's opposite, stop. Stop is taza. For example: 'taza levo!', stop there; 'Ei gura, mo eisa xitaza', I'm hungry, so we should stop (Let's stop. I'm hungry); or 'toxu tazanu!', the rain is stopping!.

And... yeah. I have been working on Reisu stuff. It just doesn't ever seem to make it's way into the blog. I'm trying to get back into posting here.

Drinking

We talked about meats recently, and this week I want to get to some even more basic words of eating. Back on my phonology posts when I started this blog I translated "amu" and "bubu" as verbs for eating and drinking.

This isn't always an appropriate translation, although it will work most of the time. Amu really means closer to 'consume' than 'eat'. We amu food, water, air, medicine and other things (that we probably shouldn't). This is the most basic word of consumption, and most often used in the context of eating.

But it's not only used for animals. Plants also amu sunlight, water and other nutrients from the soil. In fact objects can amu as well. For example my television can amu electricity, and cars amu gasoline.

Since amu can be used in all these ways, what is the word bubu for? I means the same as amu, only specifically to liquids. I use it if differentiation is needed, though it very rarely is. More commonly I use bubu to describe drinking 'ivija' or... alcohol! This is similar to a colloquial usage of drinking in English. Phrases like "Have you been drinking?" or "I've had too much to drink!" would normally refer to alcohol.

Similarly the word for breathing, feni, tends to be used when the context is not clear that we are referring to gasses. In practice, I've found this rarely necessary. If it's clear by the context amu is perfectly fine to use. And similarly to bubu, feni is used to refer to smoking. So a sign saying "ufeninu" would mean "no smoking" not "no breathing".

Unlike bubu for liquids and feni for gasses there is no special word for consuming solids. When speaking of solids always use 'amu'.

Some example sentences~
Amu safisa ono aa. - Eat all of your vegetables (Eat salad-greens you all).
Eka eisa bubu ata-go a. - Let's have one more drink (Let us drink cup-more one)!
Onapiru maino ufeninu - This is a non-smoking building (Building-this has NEG-smoking).

To be, the copula

"It depends on what your definition of 'is' is" -Bill Clinton

He got made fun of for saying that, but when you think about "to be" really means so many things in English. The sentence "I am" is so powerful because of it's ambiguity, and multiple meanings.

Reisu doesn't have such an over arching concept as this verb does in Engish. It's more broken down.

Kuala - To be the same as in identity.
Al kuala tivu.
      Al is the suit (of armor).

Luta - To belong to a specified class or group
Eisa luta emodo.
      We are people.

Maino - To have or show a specified quality or characteristic
Denu maino gura.
      The baby is hungry.
In many cases 'hola' for feel can also be used. This is mostly for first and second person subjects. For example this same sentence in first person: 'Ei hola gura'. I am hungry. (literally: feel hungry). But "Denu hola gura.", while comprehensible sounds awkward.

Reiki - To consist of, or to be made of
Laza reiki aa xusu.
      The ocean is all water.

Lamu - To be like, or have specified significance.
E lamu komonaxi.
      He's (like) a lion.

Kutu - To exist
Ei geki, mo ei kutu.
      I think, therefore I am

There are lots of other ways we use 'to be' of course, but we could just as well substitute other verbs even in English, so I won't cover that in this post, or it will become too long :)

One other fun thing with copula-type verbs in Reisu is they can be omitted if the contexts provides sufficient clues to render the copula obvious. In this case the object becomes a verb. For example:

     Ei okila bofi doro fe mama eino. E larelaila, kata e xodila
          I saw an old picture of my mom. She was beautiful, when she was young.

In this sentence it's obvious we are saying that the mother has beauty and has youth (maino). So instead of saying "E mainola larelai, kata e mainola xodi" we make larelai (beautiful) and xodi (young) into verbs. Both "E mainola larelai" and "E larelaila" are correct and appropriate in this context.

Conjugating modality

Besides what's covered in my previous verb conjugation post, verbs can also be conjugated for some modalities. This is done with prefixes.

To Need - Ru Fahei
	Positive	Negative
Basic	Ifahei	Ufahei
Do	Kifahei	Kufahei
Will	Sifahei	Sufahei
Would	Zifahei	Zufahei
Can	Lifahei	Lufahei
Could	Pifahei	Pufahei
May/might	Mifahei	Mufahei
Must	Nifahei	Nufahei
Ought to/should	Xifahei	Xufahei

The basic positive and negative forms are mostly used for answer yes/no questions. The most correct way to answer a question is to repeat the verb with i- or u-.

Example:
O amufu gaparu nei?
     Will you eat the apple?
Ihamufu/Uhamufu
     Yes/No (in the future)
Ihamu/Uhamu
     Yes/No (now)
I/U
     Yes/No (impolite, implies annoyance or frustration with the question)

The other modalities are used similarly to their English equivalents. For example will gets the prefix si-, and will not gets the prefix su-.

Just the prefixes:

Modality	Positive	Negative
Basic	I-	U-
Do	Ki-	Ku-
Will	Si-	Su-
Would	Zi-	Zu-
Can	Li-	Lu-
Could	Pi-	Pu-
May/might	Mi-	Mu-
Must	Ni-	Nu-
Ought to/should	Xi-	Xu-

Verb Conjugation

I have a love-hate relationship with conjugating verbs. It's extremely useful in one way, and in another it's very hard for me to learn. The reason being is the irregular things in the conjugation, which seem to plague the most common verbs in any language. Currently I have not written any irregularities in Reisu. I assume verbs that are more natural to be irregular will come out in speaking, when they are easier to pronounce a different way, or something like that. My vision however is that they are still written the "correct" way. So without further adieu, here's a sample of simple conjugation in Reisu.

To Have - Ra Maino
	Present	Past	Future
Basic	Maino	Mainola	Mainofu
Progressive	Mainonu	Mainonula	Mainonufu
Perfect	Mainodu	Mainodula	Mainodufu

So I want to clarify the designations I gave each type of verb in the chart, because I don't use those terms exactly correctly depending on what grammar guide you read. Basic is just that: present, past and future, which is achieved with no suffix for Present, and the suffixes -la and -fu respectively.

The progressive tense is used for continued or habitual action. This is achieved with the suffix -nu.

The perfect tense is for completed action, and has the suffix -du.

Here's a chart of just the suffixes.

Past	-la
Future	-fu
Progressive	-nu
Past Progressive	-nula
Future Progressive	-nufu
Perfect	-du
Past Perfect	-dula
Future Perfect	-dufu

Alphabet with examples - Consonants 2/2

Second part of the consonants. you get the format by now :) IPA chart

f - ɸ - No good English words for this one. Imagine the sound you make when blowing out a candle.
v - v - violin
s - s - snake
z - z - xylophone
x - ʃ - ship
j - ʒ - journey
h - h - hat
l - l - letter
y - ʎ - yes

And here are the words! First nouns, then the verbs.
Fage - Blanket
Vexu - Bird
Sinaa - Cloud
Zaba - Wrist
Xudo - Fish
Jeva - Flower
Huzo - Table
Laza - Ocean
Yefo - Shirt

Fahei - Need
Vita - Know
Sixu - Sleep
Zoga - Use
Xako - Give
Jeipa - Keep
Heiti - Find
Leika - Make
Yata - Go

Alphabet with examples - Consonants 1/2

This is a continuation for the vowels post. Like that one the Latin character is on the left, the IPA is in the middle, and the right is a sample English word. Here's my favorite IPA chart for those that want to hear examples of the IPA sounds.

p - p - put
b - b - bat
t - t - toil
d - d - doll
k - k - cat
g - g - goal
m - m - most
n - n - never
r - ɾ - There aren't any good examples of this in English. In American English we pronounce Ts like this sometimes, but in an effort to not confuse just go listen to ɾ on the IPA chart

And here's some Reisu words that start with these sounds!
Puho - Horse
Befi - Tree
Tozai - Mountain
Denu - Baby
Kigu - Foot
Gapa - Apple
Meku - Pencil
Nebu - Dog
Rigi - Sun

Puma - Ask
Bubu - Drink
Tiki - Run
Daxi - Come
Kixa - Walk
Geki - Think
Maino - Have
Neina - Say
Ragu - Want

AND as promised, a video that goes with the first post!

Alphabet with examples - Vowels

For my first post I'm going to cover the vowels and how they sound, with example words in English as well as the Reisu.

The five vowels only make a small range of sounds. On the left is how I am writing them with a Latin based alphabet, in the middle is their IPA symbols, and on the right is an example in an English word.
a - ɑ - as in father
i - i - as in see
u - ø - as in food
e - ɛ - as in bed
o - o - as in home

Now to pair them up with words of Reisu.
Ata - Cup
Inoko - Corn
Ulemi - Egg
Etaro - Eye
Okoko - House

And some common verbs.
Amu - Eat
Iyavi - Put
Ukago - Take
Eroro - Get
Oki - See

I plan at some point to release videos with pronunciation, so that you can hear and see examples of the words. For now please just do the best you can with this.