SSBMI Language Department - Education Center Staff Nisenan Class September 18, 2023

Education Center Staff Nisenan Class - September 18, 2023

In this class, we reviewed language for talking about "having" different school items in Nisenan. We learned the names for some common school items, and how to ask if someone else has one and respond. You can download a copy of the review sheet from this class by clicking here.

First, we learned Nisenan names for some common school items, like "pencil" and "paper":

English	Nisenan
paper	papél
pencil, pen	boonóyu
scissors	sɨk’ə́lyu
stapler	inpaayutíyu
tape	wac’adaktíyu

To ask someone if they "have" one of these items, you add "-pébe mi" to the end of the item's name. The suffix "-pe" means "to have", while the suffix "-be" tells you that this is a question. The word "mi" means "you", referring to one person:

English	Nisenan
Do you have _____?	_____-pébe mi?
Do you have papél? (paper)	Papelpébe mi?
Do you have boonóyu? (pencil/pen)	Boonoyupébe mi?
Do you have sɨk’ə́lyu? (scissors)	Sɨk’əlyupébe mi?
Do you have inpaayutíyu? (stapler)	Inpaayutiyupébe mi?
Do you have wac’adaktíyu? (tape)	Wac’adaktiyupébe mi?

There are many ways to respond. In this class, we focused on how to say "yes" and "no", and how to tell someone to "take" or "give" the item:

English	Nisenan
Yes.	Haan.
No.	Wiin.
Take it! (said to 1 person)	Meep mɨyé!
Give it to me! (said to 1 person)	Mey nik mɨyé!

More pronouns

In previous classes, we have shared that the word "mi" means "you", referring to exactly one person. In English, the word "you" could refer to one person or a group of people, but in Nisenan you must use different words for "you" to refer to different amounts of people. Namely, you use "maam" to refer to "you two" (i.e. to refer to exactly two people) and "meem" to refer to "you all" (i.e. to refer to three or more people).

Because the questions that we shared in this class use the word "mi", they all refer to exactly one person. If you want to ask these questions of more than one person, then you just replace the word "mi" with "maam" or "meem". For example, by swapping the pronouns you could also ask questions like "Sɨk’əlyupébe maam?" (Do you two have scissors?) or "Papelpébe meem?" (Do you all have paper?).

You could also replace "mi" with other pronouns like "ni" (I) or "mɨɨm" (he, she, it) to ask these questions of an even wider range of people. For example, you might ask yourself "Inpaayutiyupébe ni?" (Do I have a stapler?) when you are looking around and can't find your own!

The suffix "-yu"

You may have noticed that four of the words that we learned today end in "-yu". In fact, "-yu" is a Nisenan suffix that goes on verbs to create nouns that refer to a tool that you use to perform that verb. For example, "boonóyu" (pencil, pen) comes from the verb "boonó-" (to write, to draw), and so refers to pencils/pens as tools that you use to write with. You might also use this word to refer to a crayon, i.e. a tool that you use to draw with. Similarly, we use "wac’adaktíyu" for "tape"; "wac’adaktí-" means "to cause something to stick together using an adhesive", and so you might also use "wac’adaktíyu" to refer to other adhesive tools like glue.

This "-yu" suffix shows up in lots of other Nisenan tool names. For example, the word "túyyu" (bed) comes from the verb "tuy-" (to sleep), and so it literally describes a bed as the tool that you use to sleep. The word "wac’átyu" (hatchet) comes from "wac’át-" (to split something in two), and so it literally describes a hatchet as a tool that you use to split things.