Pig Latin/Lessons/5:Basic Nouns

Main Concept
Important things this Main Concept! Just like every Main Concept. Not sure why I brought it up, if the importance is implied. No matter! Look at the second word of the first sentence of this Main Concept. No, there's no subliminal messaging (that you should be aware of-- you know, by the very nature of subliminal messaging)-- that word is, believe it or not, a plural !

In NAPL, plurals are much like English-- they end in s. Take any noun, just add an s, and you're good to go. Here's one, for example: "āmrādkays" is perfect NAPL for "comrades." Simple, huh? Just wait, it gets better:

Some languages require adjectives and nouns agree when it comes to plurality. NAPL is not one of them. I.E. "udgey omhays" is totally valid, "udgeys omhays" sounds ridiculous. Don't sound ridiculous, don't "plural" your adjectives!

In English, when you're negating things, you generally just add a "not" to the front. Every time you've got to negate something, you need to insert an entire word in the middle of the sentence-- for most people, you probably only use it a few times a day. For a debby-downer, though, the word-total can compound rather quickly.

NAPL doesn't have a word for negation, just a prefix. In front of any word-- noun, adjective, adverb, verb... anything-- just add a "ny". Modifying the example from earlier, "nyāmrādkays" would mean "not-comrades." Here's a verb example: Let's say you're a monk and you often have to say, "do not want;" in NAPL, you'd just say "nyōuantō," and everyone would understand. "Nyōuantō," after all, is the infinitive form of "to not want" (ny + ōuantō).

We can even do that stupid thing where people use double or triple negations (I don't not-not want that): "Ī nynynyōuantaya." Does it work? Yes. Will anyone understand a single thing you have to say? God no.

Alright, time to shift gears back to verbs. ("Verbs?! In a noun lesson?!" Well, yes. You'll manage.) In particular, we're harking back to the most dreaded part about verbs, conjugations. We've already covered all of the possible conjugations, but there is one more thing to cover: The only irregular verb in Pig Latin. The word? To be.

Well, there you have it. Congratulations! You just survived your first and only irregular NAPL conjugation, and seemed to have made it with minimal injury! Truly an achievement.

Now, it's time to reflect upon this conjugation. Does it remind you of anything? Well, frankly, I'd hope so. I made it painfully obvious with that "English" column and all. The English and NAPL forms are the same. Isn't that crazy? Literally zero modification necessary, they're interchangable.

Do you happen to remember my "English-is-derived-from-NAPL" hypothesis from chapter 2? Well, I believe this is yet more concrete evidence in that direction. But, again, that's enough speculation. How about some vocabulary instead?

Vocabulary

 * 1) īmteay: time
 * 2) rsunpay: person
 * 3) ēngťay: thing
 * 4) laspay: place
 * 5) uvlay: love
 * 6) ādgay: god
 * 7) ōuay: way
 * 8) ōumunay: woman
 * 9) ānmay: man
 * 10) rlgay: girl
 * 11) oibay: boy
 * 12) ōurld: world
 * 13) tatsay: state
 * 14) untrēkay: country
 * 15) ārtpay: part
 * 16) ēspay: piece
 * 17) āgbay: bag
 * 18) upkay: cup
 * 19) ōdfay: food
 * 20) rēnkday: drink
 * 21) and: ānd
 * 22) angōijlay: language
 * 23) Ēngliŝ: English
 * 24) Nō Anglāy Igpāy Atinlay: New Anglo Pig Latin

No cohesive theme with these ones, other than that they're very common and are all nouns. This is obviously sane lesson-planning at its finest. Now onto what is obviously sane exercise-writing at its finest. :-)