Describing Others Sauk I Part 1

Describing Others In English, there are a few required parts of a sentence. These include: Subject (doer/experiencer) ex: I am a student. Verb (action/state) ex: I am a student. Object (receives action/experience) ex: I am a student. These are separate words in English, and they (almost) always appear in this order: SVO She eats pizza They like movies You read a lot of books.

Describing Others In Sauk, we still have subjects, verbs, and objects, but they appear in a slightly different way. Sauk is a polysynthetic language. This means many parts of a sentence can be combined into a single word instead of lots of separate words. This is why Sauk words look so long- THEY ARE COMPLETE SENTENCES! Fortunately for us, we don’t have to memorize lots of little words and struggle putting them into the right order to make meaningful sentences. Your vocabulary words are already complete sentences.

Describing Others Many of the words we think of as adjectives in English (tall, short, young, old, etc) are actually verbs in Sauk (to be tall, to be short, to be young, to be old). So the vocabulary words this week are verbs that describe a state of being. Mahkatêwânehkwêwa She has black/brown hair Kenôthiwa She/he is tall Ashkikiwa She/he is young

He/She Subjects in Sauk appear at the beginning of the verb in the form of a pronominal (subject) prefix. HOWEVER, 3rd person singular (he or she) does not have a prefix. Because there is no subject prefix, all of this week’s vocabulary refers to he/she. These sentences could easily be changed to I or you subjects with the addition of a subject prefix. Unlike English, Sauk does not differentiate between male and female 3rd person (he or she).

Wêwenethiwa He/She is beautiful.

Myâshinâkothiwa He/She is ugly.

Kenôthiwa He/She is tall.

Chahkwîhiwa He/she is short.

Kehchikiwa He/She is old.

Ashkikiwa He/She is young.