Next (Ikanirae Seru)

Vocabulary

a -- the
ahukwe -- day (24-hour period)
ak -- and
amainta -- necessary
basom- -- want
betain -- mother
bid -- but
dhamen- -- compare
dhekr- -- weep
duom -- house
dur -- for a long time
es -- be (past stem os-)
fair -- woman
famena -- jealousy
fe -- this (demonstrative determiner) / a certain
fe vot -- this (demonstrative pronoun)
galesa -- root gal- meaning "to be able to"
garant -- beck, call (noun)
geg- -- sing /s`Eg/
gensel -- child
gith -- for
held- -- come
henti -- against
ik -- 1s.sing possessive
im -- 1s.sing pronoun
kagir- -- enter
kard- -- have
kilf- -- retreat, flee
kwe -- interrogative particle
kredh- -- believe
lewek -- spirit
manitei -- think
mein -- much, a lot (primarily adverbial)
mel -- evil
mete -- good, well
nai -- negation
nenom -- never
nigredh- -- disbelieve
o -- passive particle; (poetic) essive particle
patre -- father
pertin -- anger
rel -- reflexive particle
ri -- to
sek- -- say
seon -- she
seril- -- play an instrument (3s.sing past serilge)
sol -- introduces a relative clause
taiv -- perfect particle
tek- -- do (pro-verb); passive form = "happen"; with a subordinate clause, causative
tuldh- -- stop
us -- or
vot -- it

Affixes

-alge -- 3s past
-ang -- 3s future
-e -- 1s future
-ei -- infinitive
-em -- 1s present
-er -- 1s past
-esa -- aorist plural
-i -- plural (nouns only)

Sturnan (*)

Christopher Wright

Ring B

Nai im seker "Kwe fe vot o tekalge?" Nai nigredher.
Im o gensel, nai ik betain kredher sol seon osalge amainta. Fairi nai galesa manitei.
Fe ahukwe, ik patre kagiralge (kagirei to enter) ri ik duom ak basomalge sol im gege. Dur serilge bid mel lewek heldalge gith garant.
A lewek tekalge sol ik patre mein dhekralge. Ik betain o dhamenalge henti a lewek... im kilfer. Nai galer tekei sol a lewek rel tuldhang. Nai mete galer manitei; nai karder pertin us famena gith vot.
Vot sol o tekalge nenom taiv e sekem.

I didn't say "Did all this happen?" I didn't disbelieve.
As a child, I didn't think that my mother was important. Women can't think.
One day, my father entered into my house and wanted for me to play. He played for a long time but an evil spirit was summoned (lit. came for beck).
The spirit made my father cry profusely. My mother was compared to the spirit... I fled. I couldn't make the spirit stop. I couldn't think well; I had no anger or jealousy for it.
That which was done, I have never spoken about it.

Grammar notes

Tense is relative. You have a narrative tense, usually relative to the time of discourse, and within that there's tense relative to the narrative tense. It's awkward in English to have a future from a past perspective; it ends up as "I would have done", "later I did", or some such. In Sturnan, you just use the future tense.

SVO word order. However, when you omit a subject pronoun, you can move the object to a position preceeding the verb.

When you have a phrase that you want to move without that factor, you can insert the audible trace "e" and move the phrase. It's sort of a topicalization particle, but not really.

The aorist tense refers to things that happen periodically, eternally, without surcease, etc. It refers to eternal truths. It's temporally afinitive, is what I'm trying to say.

As for the interrogative particle, yes, it makes anything a question without requiring any changes in surface structure.