1. Describing Others
Sauk I Part 1

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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).

6. Wêwenethiwa
He/She is beautiful.

7. Myâshinâkothiwa
He/She is ugly.

8. Kenôthiwa
He/She is tall.

9. Chahkwîhiwa
He/she is short.

10. Kehchikiwa
He/She is old.

11. Ashkikiwa
He/She is young.