SSBMI Language Department

Education Center Staff Nisenan Class - October 2, 2023

In this class, we learned more language for giving commands to groups of people and to individuals. We also reviewed the names for some common school items and practiced using them in commands. You can download a copy of the review sheet from this class by clicking here.

First, we learned how to tell one person to "wash" their hands using the verb "yuc’uu-" (to wash):

Previously, we learned that commands that are directed to one person take the command suffix "-p" when the verb stem ends in a vowel (e.g. "hati-" (to stop) -> "Hatip!" (Stop!)), but no suffix when the verb stem ends in a consonant (e.g. "iskit-" (to sit down) -> "Iskít!" (Sit down!)). Since the verb "yuc’uu-" (to wash) ends in a vowel, it takes the command suffix "-p" when you command one person to "wash" something.

Additionally, the word "min" means "your", referring to something that one person possesses. The word "maa" means "hand".

Next, we learned how to tell a group of people to wash their hands using similar language involving the word "yuc’uu-":

This sentence differs from the previous one in two critical respects:

First, commands that are aimed at a group of people take the plural command suffix "-wa". So, the verb "yuc’uu-" takes "-wa" instead of "-p".

Second, recall that the word "min" (your) refers to something that one person possesses. The word "mimée" (your) refers to something that three or more people possess (i.e. i.e. "you all's"), so this sentence uses "mimée" instead of "min" to address a group of people appropriately.

(If, on the other hand, you said "Yuc’uuwá min maa!", you would be telling a group of people to wash one person's hands)!

Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?) Nisenan does not pluralize nouns the same way English does. There is a special way of pluralizing human nouns (i.e. words like "tuulé" (relative), "máydɨk" (man), "etí" (older sister), etc.), but non-human nouns (i.e. words like "maa" (hand), "sukkú" (dog), "c’aa" (tree, wood), etc.) are the same regardless of whether you are talking about one or more than one.

So, for example, "maa" (hand) could refer to one hand or multiple hands. Generally, context will tell you whether someone is talking about one of something or more than one of something when it comes to non-human nouns.

Reminder about flexible word order

Unlike in English, where the order of words tells you what role they play in a sentence, word order is flexible in Nisenan such that you can often move words around in a sentence and still say the same thing. This is because Nisenan uses suffixes to indicate the role that words play, so even if they are reordered you can tell what role they play by their suffixes (for more, check out our explanation of word order from September 25).

For example, here are alternate ways to tell one person or a group of people to wash their hands:

Crucially, word order is not "free" in Nisenan in the sense that you cannot reorder just any word in a sentence; rather, some words need to stick together in a fixed order. For example, note that in these sentences the words "min maa" (your hands) and "mimée maa" (y'all's hands) need to move as a unit and stay together in that order. You cannot say, for example, *"maa min" (literally: "hand your").

In the rest of this review page, we will present word-order sentence variants together in pairs. For each sentence, note that both word orders mean the same thing and that Nisenan speakers do in fact vary in how they order words in sentences, so you can use either one.

We recommend that you pick whichever word order you feel comfortable with and use that.