Practical Course in Verdurian - Lessons 3 & 4

Tvere urek Third lesson [To Index]

Ne mershán At the market Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

The farmer wants to sell his fruit. Here he is at the market.

A woman comes, wanting to buy fruit. "Hello," she says.

"Hello, ma'am. Do you want fruit?"

"Yes. I want four apples and five pears."

The farmer counts. "One, two, three..."

"This one isn't good."

"Three, four apples. One, two..."

"Please, one moment, sir. I want five apples, not four."

The farmer gives her another apple. "That's fine, here's five apples. And the pears-- three, four, five, six."

"I don't want six pears, I want five."

The farmer takes a pear.

"One moment, sir," says the lady. "Actually I want that pear."

The farmer gives her the pear.

"But... my father is coming today. Another pear, please."

The farmer gives her a pear.

"But he doesn't like pears. So I want four pears and six apples."

The farmer takes a pear and gives her an apple. "Is that all, ma'am?"

"That's all, thank you. How much is it?"

"Four silver pieces."

The woman gives him four silver pieces.

"One moment-- I'm sorry, ma'am. I want to say, five."

The woman gives him another silver piece.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's six silver pieces..."

Lozhi Words Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Vuî Sounds Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

• Don't forget to pronounce every letter in a Verdurian word (except h). So prene = PREH-neh; bome = BOH-me.

• Verdurian letters are consistent. A c is always a hard c (not an s or or sh or ch); a g is always a hard g (not a j); an s is always an s (not a z or sh). So lase = LAH-seh; hicete = ee-KEH-teh.

• k is actually not an alternative form of c, but a separate sound, pronounced farther back in the throat. It's the same as the Arabic q, if you know that; if not, try pronouncing a series of k sounds, moving the tongue farther and farther back in the throat. The sound will become quite a bit deeper in sound, and thicker-sounding. Note the difference between English kit and milk. The k in kit is very much like the Verdurian c; the k in milk is much like Verdurian k-- but the latter is even farther back; it may help to know that the tongue is in about the same position for rh and k.

• The plural ending î is pronounced like the i in hit. This sound generally doesn't end a word in English, so you may have to practice a bit. (But think of the Missouri pronunciation of Missouri.) Luomi and luomî do not sound the same (lu-OH-mee vs. lu-OH-mih).

Mörî Culture Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Grocery shopping in the city is an expedition. You buy produce and honey at the market; bread at the bakery; meat at the butcher; wine and liquor at the vintner; fish at the fishmonger, and cheese, spices, and imported specialties (tea, coffee, sugar) at the grocer.

Almea is of course a different planet from Earth, and all the names of animals, plants, fruit, and vegetables should be taken to be those of the nearest equivalent. A Verdurian luom is smallish, tart, and orangeish-red; a chura looks like a fat pear but tastes more like a melon, and so on.

Aluatas Grammar Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Adjectives agree with nouns in gender (and, as we will see, in case and number). There are several classes of adjectives, which you can tell apart by the dictionary form, which will be the masculine, singular, nominative form.

The adjectives given in the vocabulary above are in this form. Note that they all end in -e; this is the mark of what the grammarians call declension II adjectives. To form the feminine, change the -e into -ë: dobrë chura "a good pear"; soa pësë cira "the sad wife".

Plurals. Most nouns have a plural ending in -î. If the noun ends in a consonant, just add this suffix; if it ends in a vowel, replace it:

hutorom farmer	-->	hutoromî farmer
cuon dog	-->	cuonî dogs
uestu man	-->	uestî men
atüchy villain	-->	atüchî villains
cira wife	-->	cirî wives
redelcë woman	-->	redelcî women

However, nouns ending in -o have a plural that ends in -oi:

avo grandfather	-->	avoi grandfathers
kuzulo cousin	-->	kuzuloi cousins

Adjectives have plurals too, which are formed like those of nouns, using -î:

dobrî luomî	good apples
bomî atüchî	old villains
pësî redelcî	sad women
cuonî suletî er lerezhî	young and happy dogs

Numbers. The numbers from one to ten:

1		an
2		dhun
3		dhin
4		par
5		pan
6		sues
7		hep
8		zhoc
9		nev
10		dec

As an obnoxious quirk, the numbers from 1 to 3 are regular adjectives. This doesn't matter for counting, but when you use a number with a noun it must agree with it in number, case, and gender. Thus:

• an uestu "one man", but ana redelcë "one woman"; ana because redelcë is feminine

• dhunî uestî "two men", dhinî redelcî "three women"

The accusative. In English, pronouns have special forms when they're used as objects (which generally means, after a verb or a preposition). Grammars call such distinctions case. This is true of Verdurian as well; but Verdurian also marks nouns for case, like Latin, German, or Russian.

Verdurian has four cases, which are named and used as follows:

case	used for	example	pronoun example
nominative	subjects	the man hits the dog	he hits the dog
accusative	direct objects	the dog bites the man	the dog bites him
genitive	things possessed	the man's dog	his dog
dative	indirect objects	the man gives the dog a bone	he gives him a bone

For most of the singular nouns that we have been studying, as well as the article so/soa, the nominative and the accusative are the same.

So hutorom badhe so cuon. The farmer hits the dog.
Soa redelcë crezhe soa chura. The woman eats the pear.

Nouns in -o, however, have an accusative that ends in -am. So when Ihano does something, he's Ihano; but when someone does something to him, he's Ihanam.

Mira esë ditave Ihanam. My mother likes Ihano.

cuonî dogs	-->	cuoni (acc.)
kuzuloi cousins	-->	kuzulom
churî pears	-->	churem

Now you can see why we saw forms like luomi and churem in the reading:

Vulu par luomi er pan churem. I want four apples and five pears.

"Apples" and "pears" are in the plural accusative because they're the object of vulir 'want.'

Onteca Exercises Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

2. Go through this and previous lessons and find a bunch of nouns. If you can, say what their plurals and accusatives are.

3. Construct some adjective + noun combinations. Use feminine and masculine nouns; try some in the plural,too.

4. In lessons 1 and 2, some nouns were used as direct objects. Did they appear in a special case form? If not, why not?

Chetve urek Fourth lesson [To Index]

Piro er medh Father and son Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

--Pyeru, piro. Ublinai soa kuna.

A farmer calls his son. His son comes.

"Hello, father."

"Pavel, we need bread and sausage," the father says to him. "You can find them at the market. Do you understand?"

"I understand, father. You need bread and apples and I can find them at... at..."

"The market, fool, and I don't want apples, but sausage. You won't forget them?"

"I'll remember them, father."

"On Néronden, you brought the bread and forgot the sausage."

"Today I am remembering everything. You can trust me, father."

"I trust you-- I'm indeed a fool. So. You're looking for bread and..."

"Sausage," says the son.

He is happy to remember it. His father looks at him.

"Go," he says to him. "I and your mother will wait for you."

"Goodbye, father."

The son goes; the father waits for him. Then, he sees him coming back [literally, he sees who returns].

"Hello, father."

"Did you forget the bread?"

"No, father."

"And the sausage?"

"I didn't forget it. Bread and sausage, bread and sausage, I repeated them like that-- you see, I'm not a fool."

"You are a good son, Pavel! But where are the bread and sausage?"

"I'm sorry, father. I forgot the money."

Lozhi Words Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

Vuî Sounds Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

• Keep the vowels pure. English vowels don't stay in the same place, but glide off in the direction of i, u, or uh. Pronounce Verdurian o as oh, not o (as in low); e as eh, not ay (as in raise); u as oo, not you (as in union). The vowels don't change their quality before an r: hutor is OO-tohr-- the o doesn't get colored by the r, as in English more.

• A consonant between vowels goes with the following syllable. So, siloran = see-LOH-rahn, not seel-or-on.

• Most Englishes have two types of L, one 'clear' as in light, one 'dark' as in till. The Verdurian l is always clear, even at the end of a word.

• The r is pronounced as in Spanish, with a single tap against the ridge behind the teeth. An American r won't do. If you have trouble with this sound, think of the ultra-British pronunciation veddy for very. It's the same sound.

Mörî Culture Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

You fill a zer with a meaty sauce, potatoes, and chopped vegetables and roll it up. You can now pick it up and eat it or, in fine dining situations, it's covered with more sauce and eaten with knife and fork. It's typically accompanied with rice or beans, and wine (for all ages).

If you're poor, the sauce is merely meaty; if you're well off it'll be mostly meat.

Thick zerî are used to make sandwiches (celzerî, literally 'between-zerî'), usually with cheese and sausage inside.

Other typical dishes include fish (pazh) and potatoes (susluoma); soups (legua) of all kinds; Ismaîn seafood salad; and meat grilled "malsfaom-style" over an open fire.

Aluatas Grammar Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

-ai	silorai	I need	ametai	I trust
-ei	silorei	you (singular) need	ametei	you trust
-e	silore	he or she needs	amete	he or she trusts
-am	siloram	we need	ametam	we trust
-o	siloro	you (plural) need	ameto	you trust
-u	siloru	they need	ametu	they trust

The other verb types are a little different, and we'll learn them later. (Remember that the he/she form ends in -e for all verbs, however.)

Past tense. To form the past tense, you use the same personal endings, but insert -n- before them:

-nai	silornai	I needed	ametnai	I trusted
-nei	silornei	you needed	ametnei	you trusted
-ne	silorne	he or she needed	ametne	he or she trusted
-nam	silornam	we needed	ametnam	we trusted
-no	silorno	you (plural) needed	ametno	you trusted
-nu	silornu	they needed	ametnu	they trusted

Two of the verbs we've encountered, esan 'to be' and dan 'give', have irregular past roots:

• esan: use fu-: fuai 'I was'; fue 'he or she was'
• dan: use don-: donai 'I gave', donam 'we gave'
• lädan: use läzn-: läznai 'I went', läznu 'they went'

Pronoun objects. Just as nouns have special ("accusative") object forms, so do pronouns. These may be easier than the noun forms, since we have object forms for pronouns in English, too.

et		me
erh		you (singular)
ilet		him
ilat		her
tam		us
mü		you (plural)
cam		them

These pronouns always appear before the verb, not after. Thus:

Pavel ilat suzane. Pavel remembers her.
Tam suzanei? Do you remember us?
Et siloro. You (plural) need me.

Note that ilun 'to him' and ilan 'to her' from the last lesson go before the verb, too.

There's a word for "it" that we'll learn later, but it's not used for ordinary nouns-- you use ilet and ilat instead, depending on the gender of what you're referring to. So in Verdurian, when you eat an apple you don't eat it, you eat him (ilet crezhei), since luom is masculine; and when you eat a pear you eat her (ilat crezhei), since chura is feminine.

Ke 'who' has a special object form too, ket:

Ket lelai? Who do I see?
Ket lezhiram? Who are we waiting for?

(In older English we'd use 'whom' for these sentences. The ke/ket distinction is very much like the who/whom distinction. But if you're not sure when to say 'whom', think about when you'd use 'I' vs. 'me' instead.)

Fsë 'everything', however, has no distinct accusative form.

Onteca Exercises Urek Lozhi Vuî Mörî Aluatas Onteca

2. Put your sentences into the past tense.

3. Translate into Verdurian:

The father has a son who is a fool. He went to buy bread and sausage at the market, but he forgot the sausage. Who can forget to buy something (shto) at the market? Today he was at the market again (on) and he forgot his money.

But his daughter is not a fool. She can go to buy something and she can remember them. Her father says, go! She buys apples, pears, mead, bread-- everything. And she brings them to him. You can trust her; you can't trust a fool.