Tele-teaching course for Proto-Drem - Lesson 3

 

 

XXX - Third lesson

 

XXX – The Shamans quiet friend:

 

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XXX - Words

 

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

 

 

English meaning	Proto-Drem word

 

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.

 

 

Pronounce the vowels as seen in the chart below.

 

 

Pronounce the consonants as seen in the chart below.

 

 

XXX – Culture

 

In the Dremish culture, spirits are everywhere. They reside in the rocks, the trees, the streams, the rolling grasses, the animals, the mountains and sky. Since everything around them is essentially ‘alive’, then everything must be respected since life is precious and to be held in esteem. All spirits are capable of having a ‘conversation’, yet some spirits are slow and generally uninterested such as rock or ice spirits, while spirits of the sky and water spirits are generally intelligent. The most ‘talkative’ of the spirits are spirits of the clans ancestors and ‘heroes’ which can easily guide the day-to-day lives of a clan. There are also certain ‘levels’ of spirits such as those which are generally low such as a simple rock spirit, to the greater spirits, such as a thunderstorm or the ‘spirit of the hunt’.

 

Nearly all of the time, there is one who converses with the spirits, and that is the Anima (shaman). The anima makes proper ‘offerings’ to the spirits, follows their guidance, asks for favors from, and can also heal the spirits. The anima is usually in a trance induced by hallucinogenic mushrooms and goes to ‘the spirit-world’ to do what needs to be done to properly care for the clan. Since the spirits bring the seasons, the hunt, the abundant fruit that keeps the clan alive, the spirits must be taken care of and never forgotten, so the spirits are a very important part of the Dremish mindset. Note that not all spirits are helpful; as some can induce nightmares, and are even outwardly evil in behavior and so the spirit must protect the clan from those spirits as well.

 

The Anima is one with a great deal of responsibility upon their shoulders, to care for and protect the clan from the ‘forces unseen’. And so disease, a death, a newborn child, a good hunt, even a poorly producing flint mine can affect how the anima goes about their job.

 

XXX – Grammar

 

 

Interjections:

 

Hi! is an interjection. An interjection such as ‘Uh-huh’ or ‘Oh-Oh’ or ‘yeah…..’ are found commonly in most languages, and so are no surprise when found in Proto-Drem as well. Interjections are found in nearly every case as a sentence in their own right, so interjections go against the grain of generally what a sentence needs to be a ‘real’ sentence. So an interjection such as “Hurray!!!” of course shows the sheer joy and elation of the speaker.

 

Interjections can generally be used in two main ways. The main way is when the interjection is used at the start of a sentence, and then the rest is generally considered an explanation of why the interjection was used. So one can say “Damn, that spear almost hit me!” Below is the chart of the interjections used in Proto-Drem, and note that all are fairly common is use.

 

 

Conjunctions I:

 

Conjunctions is Proto-Drem are common and numerous. There are plenty of ways to connect parts of sentences using conjunctions, and all generally have slight variations of a few ‘main’ types. But generally conjunctions run as two main styles. The two main styles can be seen as those that deal with a ‘time’ issue, with conjunctions such as until, before, then…. The second larger group is those conjunctions which do not have a ‘time’ issue attached to them. This lesson will deal with the smaller set dealing with time.

 

The five conjunctions in this lesson usually have slight shades of meaning, but they generally all have the same idea, and that is the conjunction is linked to an event or action. Examples are plentiful as one can see these as ‘After I hunt …”, “Before you go …”, “From that day on …”, and “Until I return …”. One can easily see that these are at the beginning of a tiny part of a sentence called a clause, which is followed by another sentence or clause. The Conjunction in these cases as one can see is placed like a negative, at the front of the sentence.

 

After                             XXX

Till, until                        XXX

Before                           XXX

Then, and then               XXX

From, since                   XXX

 

Since these conjunctions are fairly common, most speakers memorize them thru using them.

 

Plurals:

 

Unlike a noun class, these plurals go to the right of a noun and form a larger ‘root’ that is called a ‘stem’. Generally plurals in Proto-Drem are usually seen like noun classes in front of nouns, and below when we talk of numbers, by that route, we can also show that there are many of the same thing. Here though, we will use -ndó for many, -hódu few, -ndèle some as a type of plural which brings into mind a specific number instead of just a large amount, the speaker has a certain amount in mind. “Bring some sticks for the fire.” compared to “Bring many sticks for the fire.”

 

Note that ndó- is the plural that is most like a noun class in that is has a meaning of “many” and as such gives some words have a new meaning such as ‘person’ changing to ‘people’, or ‘hut’ changing to ‘village’.

 

-hódu                            few

Jahódu                          a few people/a family

 

-ndèle                           some

Jandèle                         some people/a clan

 

-ndó                              many

Jandó                            a people/tribe

 

These plurals like conjunctions above are usually memorized thru using them.

 

Numbers I:

 

Numbers in Proto-Drem are basically divided into 2 main areas. The first are the cardinal numbers like 1, 2, and 3 and so on, while the ordinal numbers are used as 1^st, 2^nd, and 3rd and so on. In this lesson, we will just deal with the basics of numbers as numbers and especially math can get complicated, even for the speakers of Proto-Drem. The Dremish clans seemed to have used their hands for a simple based 10 system, just like what is used with the metric system. Since the numbers generally came from the names of the fingers on the hand, we also

 

 

 

Cardinal numbers:

 

This method of adding information to cardinal numbers is to generally use plurals as seen above. So that a word like Zèbábóhódụ would mean several things such as “as few as three” or “as many as three” or “just three”. Note since –hódụ means ‘few’, the most common meaning would be the first one “as few as three”.

 

Zènjùmbúsándó

As many as nine

 

Zèmuŋándó

As many as five

 

Zèmbúsáhódụ

As few as four

 

• Note that with using the plurals above, -ndèle (some) can’t be used. Only –hódu or –ndó can be used to give the correct meaning of what “zè-” intends.

 

Ordinal numbers:

 

This way to make a number into an ordinal number with a general meaning of ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘third’ and so on.

 

Sûnjùmbúsә

Ninth

 

Sûmuŋə

Fifth

 

Sûmbúsә

Fourth

 

• Note: The word bádẹ- can be used to the left of the ordinal number to add a bit of meaning to the number. The word means generally ‘kind, item’ so that the word bádẹsûmbúsә would mean “(the) Fourth item.”
• Note: The word ŋgbò- can be used to the left of the ordinal number to also add meaning to the word. In this case, it adds ‘times’ is added so that the word ŋgbòsûmbúsә would mean “four times.”. This can easily be used as ‘cut the antler four times.’
• Note: The word ŋkò- can be used to the left of the ordinal number to also add meaning to the word. In this case, it adds ‘time/occasion’ so that the word ŋkòsûmbúsә would mean “(the) fourth time.”

 

In a later lesson, we will go over the more ‘math’ type numbers stuff with concepts such as fractions, measurements, distances, quantifiers and approximation.

 

Serial Verbs I:

 

Serial verbs for most people are a mystery or totally unknown. Yet in Proto-Drem, serial verbs are quite common and generally used by most people. Since serial verbs are generally quite complex, we will start off at the basics in this lesson and work our way up in the next several lessons. The main thing with serial verbs is what the term implies, in that verbs form a string or a chain. In this way, one may have several verbs all in a row and make a complete sentence without any “information” in between the verbs. As such, the serial verbs must agree together in several ways. For us here, the three main things that serial verbs agree on are that the verbs represent a set of actions with the first verb being the first action, and so on. The next thing is that the verbs share the same tense or mood. The last thing is that there are to be no conjunctions or other ‘links’ that connect the verbs together.

 

So with this in mind, we have a fundamental and basic view that serial verbs represent a series of actions, done in succession.

 

Proper – single event

 

I+go+hunt

I went hunting

 

Coordination – multiple events

 

I+hunt+go+hut

I hunted, then went home

 

V-V Compounds:

 

Resultive:

 

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3P+TAM+wash-clean+clothes

She washed the clothes clean

 

Causative:

 

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2P+TAM+make+cry+he

You made him cry

 

Directional:

 

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Small+cat+TAM+run+come

The small cat came running (towards the speaker)

 

Attributive verbs I:

 

Attributive verbs are a fancy term for what in English we call ‘adjectives’. A lot of information can be used for these, so only the basics will be dealt with in this lesson. In Proto-Drem, there technically aren’t any verbs per say, as each verb has a distinctive ‘to be/is’ attached and so the verb is actually doing a double duty. The double duty is being a verb and an adjective at the same time. With the language, there are two general styles of attributive verbs. The first style is where the words are not a compound word like “blue-berry”, but a single word like “old”. The first style is fairly small, as Proto-Drem uses compound words fairly commonly. Normally attributive words such as colors are normally simple words, such as “blue” or “green”.

 

The second style is the compound words and can convey a large amount of information. For Proto-Drem, there are generally three ways we see how the compounds form. The first is used with a “worthy of” which is then followed by the next word. The second way is “having the characteristic of” which gives the object a certain characteristic. The third style is for people and animals, and is used as “given to/good at” which is usually thought of as a skill or talent.

 

Another interesting thing to point out with how these are formed is that a compound dealing with the head and usually deals with attitudes; the compound is seen starting with the word head. The last of these two oddball styles is usually for emotions and starts with the word ‘heart’ since emotions are thought to originate there. Below will be a few examples of each ‘grouping’ so as to give you a taste of what to expect when using these compounds.

 

Compounds:

 

“worthy of” + to hate                                           [ugly]

“worthy of” + to love                                            [cute, lovable]

“worthy of” + to be bored                                     [boring]

 

“having the characteristic of” + to forget                [forgetful]

“having the characteristic of” + timid                     [cowardly]

“having the characteristic of” + complain               [nagging]

 

“good at” + to observe                                         [observant]

“good at”  to speak                                             [talkative]

“good at” + to think                                             [Thoughtful, Given to thinking]

 

Oddballs:

 

Head + Heavy                                                    [worried]

Head + old                                                        [conservative, old-fashioned]

Head + hard                                                      [stubborn, headstrong]

 

Heart + enough                                                  [Satisfied/Content]

Heart + cool                                                      [calm, relaxed]

Heart + Hot                                                       [Impetuous, Rash, quick-tempered]

 

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”.