Tele-teaching course for Proto-Drem - Lesson 1

 

 

XXX - First lesson

 

XXX – The mother and child gather berries.

 

XXX, gbarishamígbabuzà XXX

Little bear, gather those berries over there that the bears eat.

Wa, ŋindondobá.

Yes, I see them.

Ógùmbomu.Sì XXX

It is Icetime. We need as many as you can carry.

Wa, ŋihonjaŋko.

Yes, I understand

ŋigbarezishafeb’usa wâ anima

I am picking the herbs (that are wanted by) the shaman.

ŋg’afeb’usa?

What herbs?

XXX, Animab’ananimawâbá

These red flowers, the shaman said the spirits want them.

Gàŋə?

Why?

Nà animab’ana. Sìrishamígbabu!

The Shaman didn’t say. Just pick the berries

 

Miŋkanalolạ.

My basket is full

XXX, Sèholendèndó

Good, let’s go back to the village.

 

XXX - Words

 

If a word isn't listed here, look for it in the Grammar section.

 

 

English meaning	Proto-Drem word
n. Little Bear (a common name)
v. to give	gbare
CAUS	-isha
n. berry	gbabu
NC4	mí
NC23	fe
Loc. There, over there	zà
n. bear
v. To eat, bite, chew, gnaw	wè
Yes	wa
1P (I)	ŋi
v. to see	ndóndò
3P (them)	bá
2P (it)	ógù
n. Icetime (winter)	mbomu
3P (we)	sì
2P (you)	u
v. carry
v. to understand	honjaŋko
n. herb	b’usa
n. One who is associated with spirits (shaman)	anima
A/Abo	a-
Attv. red	nd’oru
n. flower
v. to say, tell, speak	b’ana
n. spirit	nima
MOD (obviative) [to want, desire, need]	wâ
QUES (why?)	gàŋə
QUES (what?)	ŋg’a
NEG (no, not, didn’t)	nà
MOD (imperative)	sí- … -e
MOD (Hortative)	sé- … -e
1PPoss (my)	mi
n. basket	Ŋkanә
v. to fill; attv. to be full	lola

 

XXX – Sounds

 

We include here as approximate description of the sound used in Dremish speech in terms of the nearest similar sound in English. It is impossible to be altogether exact, but this section is meant for the benefit of those who would find it difficult to understand technical description.

 

One of the more “interesting sounds to make are an implosive. Never heard of one? They are fairly common in African languages. The process for “producing” an implosive can come down to a few fairly easy steps.

 

• Close your mouth.
• Close your glottis/consciously lower your ‘Adams apple’.
• open your mouth letting your lips part last. You should hear an implosive pop.
• Now do it again, only just voice it.

 

Pronounce the vowels as seen in the chart below.

 

*note: If some of the symbols do not show up on your browser, try this font to display the IPA symbols correctly. The font is called Doulos SIL (Unicode compliant) and is found here.

 

Symbol	English Equivalent
a	Like the American English a in father and arm
ǝ	Like the American English a in about and cinema. More commonly known as the schwa.
o	Like the Scottish English o in no, tow
ↄ	Like the American English au in cause, caught, and the a in law
u	Like the American English oo in soon, through
ʊ	Like the American/British English u in put, wood, book
i	Like the British English y in city and the Scottish English ee in see
I	Like the American English i in hit or sit
e	Like the Australian/New Zealand English e in bed
ɛ	Like the American English e in bet or bed or the New Zealand English e in lad, bad, cat

 

Pronounce the consonants as seen in the chart below.

 

Symbol	English Equivalent
b	English ‘b’ as in boy or bell.
ɓ	A hollow sounding ‘b’ due to the glottis being closed and air being drawn in when saying it. This is an implosive.
d	English ‘d’ as in dog or door.
ɗ	Just like the above implosive, except with a hollow ‘d’ sound.
g	English ‘g’ as in girl or get.
ɠ	Just like the above implosive, except with a hollow ‘g’ sound.
gb	English 'g' blending into the English 'b'.
ŋgb	A nasal ‘ng’ like singer, blending with the 'g' and blending into the English 'b'.
m	Just like English.
mb	English 'm' blending into the English 'b'.
mɓ	English 'n' blending into the hollow implosive 'b'.
n	Just like English.
nd	English 'n' blending into English initial 'd'.
nɗ	English 'n' blending into the hollow ‘d’ implosive.
Ɉ	Tongue up front like saying the k in key, except with a ‘g’ sound.
ɲ	English 'ni’ as in onion.
nj⁀	A hollow implosive version of the English 'ni’ as in onion.
j	English ‘y’ as in Yak or You.
j⁀	The hollow implosive version of the English ‘y’ as in Yak or You.
nɈ	A nasal ‘n’ blending into the same sound as the ‘k’ in key.
ŋk	A nasal ‘ng’ blending into the same sound as the ‘c’ in cat.
ŋ	The famous sound which is well known from Old English. In modern English, it is like the ‘ng’ in singer.
nɠ	The hollow implosive version of the ‘ng’ sound.
f	English ‘f’ as in fish.
v	English ‘v’ as in vowel.
s	English ‘s’ as in see or sail.
z	English ‘z’ as in zoo.
h	English ‘h’ as in house or aha!
l	English ‘l’ as in lost or lava.
r	English ‘r’ as in rose.
w	English ‘w’ as in white and water.

 

XXX – Culture

 

The Dremish clans are a late Neolithic people, dealing with important trade items such as red ochre and flint, and so know very little about metals at all. Therefore, with civilization still in infancy in the region, the clans are fairly nomadic with seasonal villages as the clans follow migratory herds thru the local plains and forests that occur throughout the region.

 

With men doing most of the hunting and dealing with mining and keeping weapons intact and repaired, nearly all the cooking is dealt with by the women. So the women are fairly knowledgeable of where herbs, nuts, fruit trees, and medicinal herbs are in their territory. They are also quite capable of preparing the foods and medicines that generally help keep the whole clan healthy. Women take their daughters along for walks, and teach the young girls what the plants look like, what parts of the plants are used and warn them of poisonous plants that are to be avoided. This division of labor has been done for many, many generations and cultures practice this even today in the modern era.

 

XXX – Grammar

 

Sentence order:

 

The standard Dremish sentence order is Subject-Verb-Object. Let’s divide a small sample sentence to show you what goes where. We’ll use the sentence Ŋiholuzà which means ‘I went over there’.

 

SUBJ    VERB   OBJ

Ŋi         holu      zà

I           went     over there

 

We’ll use another sample sentence to show you how the “little words” can be dropped, and to show how context is important. The sentence is Ŋiholundèhe which generally means ‘I went (to the) hut’, but can also be understood as ‘I went home’.

 

SUBJ    VERB   OBJ

Ŋi         holu      ndèhe

I           went     hut

 

Articles:

 

Proto-Drem can be tricky, since articles are not used, so there is no ‘the’, ‘an’ or ‘a’, so when listening to a sentence, context is critical as how the words are put together will tell you what information is needed. So as seen above in the sentences above, context is important as information can be missed.

 

Questions and negatives:

 

There are several ways to deal with questions in Proto-Drem, each way deals with the ‘who, what, where, when, why, how’ styles of questions. For most questions, use the question at the end of the sentence.

 

Uholumbé?

Where are you going?

 

• Negatives in Proto-Drem are quite easy. All one generally does is put nà at the beginning of the sentence and it essentially negates everything in the sentence such as used below. The other main way that people use negatives is right after a subject.

 

Nàholuŋalù?

You didn’t go, did you?

 

Nà, ŋinà.

No, I didn’t.

 

Possessive pronouns:

 

To show when something belongs to something else, a possessive pronoun is used. These pronouns are nearly always seen to the left of a “gender marker” known as a noun class, and the noun class is to the left of the noun.

 

mib’áŋkaŋụ        my sauce

guwùd’abị          your balls

ŋgùbówana        his/hers/its piece

                       

• Be careful of ŋgù, since it is means his, hers and its’.
• Be careful with pronouns, as they have small changes which can cause the pronouns to be understood in a totally different way than one intends.

 

Noun Classes:

 

Proto-Drem has a large amount of “genders” as these genders deal with specific things such as liquids, or things made from trees. It also deals with abstract things such as numbers or shapes. The noun classes are also important since an object can be seen as singular or as many with the use of a noun class. Since noun classes are generally important and used a lot, most people will try to memorize the noun classes as subtle differences will dictate differing meanings easily.

 

b’ánd’oru           blood (lit. red liquid)

feb’usa              medicinal herbs

           

• Always try to memorize the noun classes, which thru consistent use will make the task easier.
• Note the difference with using a noun class for herbs; fe- is usually used for medicines, while mí- is commonly used for ‘food’ herbs/spices.

 

A-/Abo- and Association:

 

Proto-Drem has an easy way of denoting association. There are two types. The first, and generally more used is a simple a- which is generally thought of ‘one who has association with …” which is attached directly to the noun. This is seen with the word ‘nima’ meaning spirits. One who is associated with spirits would be called a shaman. Abo- is a commonly used version and deals with ‘one who does’ which deals with a skill or occupation. The abo- version would be used with a verb such as ‘hunt’ and make the verb into a noun ‘hunter’.

 

Note that due to this association style of noun, a noun class is usually dropped, but only when clarity is needed will a noun class be used. The noun classes usually thought of will be the 1st one dealing with the ‘self’ and the 2nd noun class dealing with ‘others’. The first one is m- and the second is w-.

 

Anima               shaman

Ab’usa              herbalist

 

Abondùbạ          hunter

Abomb’àne        trapper 

           

• Always try to remember that abo- is used with verbs that can be made into skills or occupations, so the use of the prefix does have limitations.

 

Exercises:

 

Are you ready for an exercise to see what you’ve learned, and to see what you can apply so far? If you understand what was presented in this lesson and you want to tackle bigger challenges, then “Go to the exercise for this lesson”.