Lesson 1  
Next Lesson

Person markers Vocabulary
Gender and the third person   Miwok to English exercise
Translations of verbs   English to Miwok exercise
    Key to the exercises

 Person Markers  
Top  



Person markers in Miwok are prefixes that go with nouns and verbs.
With nouns, person markers indicate:
    who possesses the noun: kachúppulu "my money"
    or who is in relationship with the noun: ka置nu "my mother"
With verbs, person markers indicate:
    who is performing the action: kamacchaw "I am speaking"
    or who is experiencing or being the state the verb describes: katowih 的 am well."

Notice that we call "well" an adjective in English, but its Miwok equivalent acts like a verb. You'll see more about this shortly.
All of the examples above show the first-person marker ka-, as in ka置nu "my mother" or katowih 的 am well." Altogether, Miwok has three persons, like just about all other languages. They are:
First person refers to the speaker:"I"
Second person refers to the listener: "you"
Third person refers to everything else you might talk about: "he," "she," "it," "they," etc.
Here is the whole set of person markers in the singular, when they refer to one individual or thing:
 
    with nouns with verbs
First person ka- "my" "I"
Second person un- "your" "you"
Third person uh- "he/she/it" "he/she/it"


You値l learn about the other numbers in the next lessons. Here are examples of the singular person markers with a couple of verbs:
 
kamaccaw "I'm speaking" katowih "I am well"
unmacchaw "you're speaking"   untowih "you're well"
uhmacchaw "he/she is speaking"   uhtowih "he/she is well"

  Gender and the third person  
Top  

By itself the Miwok third-person marker 'us- doesn't tell you anything about gender. In English you have to chose between masculine "he," feminine "she," or neutral "it." Miwok doesn't spell this out for you. In the examples that follow, 'us- is sometimes translated as "he/she" or "his/her" and sometimes as "he" or "she" or "it" this is just for convenience and variety in the English translation, not because Miwok specifies gender here.
  Translations of verbs  
Top  


You may notice that a verb such as kamacchaw "I am speaking" translates in a way that implies continuing action: "I am in the process of speaking." Miwok is usually careful to distinguish continuing action from an action that takes place once. For example, the basic verb macchaw means "to be speaking," while another form of the verb is máswati, which means "to speak once, to say something."

Later lessons will cover this point more thoroughly, but for now it's important to keep in mind that the Miwok verbs you'll see in this lesson all refer to continuing action. When necessary, the English translation is in the "-ing" form to make this clear.

  Vocabulary for Lesson 1  
Top  

Verbs		  
Nouns		  
alu "to hear"   aay "child"
koya "to sing"   api "father"
macchaw "to speak"   koccha "house"
missu "to think, guess"   lanta "arrow"
molih "to be glad, happy"   lawwa "dress, garment"
pichah "to know"   sut "eye"
sukku "to be new, young"   ukkuh "hand"
towih "to be good, be well"   unu "mother"

  Exercises  
Top  

Click on the key to see the answers.

Translate these Miwok words into English.   Top
         
1. kapichah 9. uhlawwa
2. uhtowih   10. kasút
3. unmolih   11. unkoccha
4. kaunu   12. unapi
5. uhkoya   13. kaalu
6. kaáay   14. unukkuh
7. uhmissu   15. uhlanta
8. uhmacchaw   16. unsukku
         
Translate these English phrases into Miwok.   Top
         
1. "it's new," "he/she is young"   9. "his/her mother"
2. "my arrow"   10. "I think"
3. "your eye"   11. "you sing"
4. "you hear"   12. "his/her hand"
5. "his/her house"   13. "you know"
6. "I'm well"   14. "my dress, garment"
7. "your child"   15. "you're speaking"
8. "my father"   16. "I'm happy"