Ikanirae Seru
by Estel Telcontar
The Text
ekaiti se uomo yarai ha metani a
ikeyumora ha seru kenie a yarai ha tamoka ireora tu reona a yuti ha
enai a keko arai ha heko sikoku yuti a nara isikokura ha enai one yuti
a nara neko arai ha seru esa ma keyumora a "otu seru ma yuti ikesita se
yuti mosa metani iroha o uomo yarai ha metani koimu yuti enai a" ara
keyumora ha seru esa a ataya tiyo nona metani ro yuti teteki a nara
uomo yarai ha nesatu okosa a ara keyumora ha nesa metani teteki a
English translation:
The time that evil people prayed.
The teachers told this story. People believed the words to be holy.
We hid. No one could protect us. So the protectors hid with us. So
someone said this to a teacher: “Tell us the things that we should
pray! Evil people have prayed to see us hide.” But the teacher said
this: “god already hears all your prayers.” So the evil people became
angry. But the teacher had already begun praying.
Grammar
Syntax
Word order is strictly SVO. Every sentence ends with a “sentence-type
marker”; the only two such markers in this text are “a” which marks
statements, and “o” which marks requests and commands. Since these are
sufficient to determine the end of a sentence, sentence-final
punctuation is usually not used, and capital letters are also not used.
Subjects are not omitted in requests and commands.
Inflections
The only inflection is pluralization of nouns and pronouns, which is entirely
regular: “y-“ is prefixed before vowels, and “i-“ is prefixed before consonants.
Vocabulary
a statement marker (spoken period)
ara but
arai person
ataya god
enai hide
ekaiti time
esa this
ha past tense marker (“did”)
heko can, be able to
keko no, none, not any
kenie story
kesita thing (non-physical; not “object”)
keyumo teach
koimu see
ma to
metani pray, praying, prayer
mosa should
nara so, therefore
neko some
nesa begin
nesatu become
nona all
o request/command marker
okosa angry
one with
otu 2nd person pronoun (you) (singular)
-ra -er (person who does X)
reona holy
reora word
ro of
roha 3rd person nonliving pronoun (it)
se relative marker (“that”)
seru speak, talk, say
sikoku protect
tamoka believe
teteki already
tiyo hear
uomo evil
uti 1st person pronoun (I) (singular)