Yaane'e kukaamonga xaa.

I just started studying Tongva this week. It's the language people spoke in what's now the Los Angeles area. I barely know how to say "Are you hungry?" ("Koviinokha'a?"), but it's more than I knew last week!

Does anyone out there in /lang/ speak an American Indian language?

You n'wah!

>>1

Native American languages are notoriously difficult, aren't they. Has anything blown your mind, yet?

>>3
Well, I'm not too far into it, so I'm just into the simple stuff atm. The word order is completely interchangeable, except for pronouns which must come after the 1st word in the sentance.  The words for negation (Xaay) and for time (like in the title, Yaa, meaning "now" or "already") must be the first word in the sentance, with negation having first priority when you're saying both.

There's a letter that'll throw most people for a loop, "ng". When you say "singer" in English, the "ng" makes a single sound (not n + guh). This sound is a full-blown letter in Tongva, like in the words "Yaanga" ("in Los Angeles") and "Ngaavavet" ("grindstone").

Other than that, I'm waiting on a grammar and phrasebook I ordered off the internet about a week ago.

The title I started the thread with basically means "I'm in Cucamonga right now."

>>4
Isn't Tongva no more spoken since 1970s?
In any case, I'm a big fan of Native American languages too. Wish I could speak Navajo some day...

yo
are indian languages related to china/siberia
I think they have to be?

>>6
The only relations that have been proven with any kind of decent evidence is for the Dené-Yeniseian family, which includes the Na-Dene languages of North America, including Tlingit (US and Canadian Northwest), Navajo (US Southwest); as well as the last surviving Yeniseian language, Ket (Central Siberia).

The Eskimo-Aleutian family has representative languages in Siberia, but they migrated *back* to Siberia from Alaska at some point.

>>5
Tongva doesn't hasn't had native speakers for awhile now, that's for sure. But the political fracturing within the tribe goes so far that noone even agrees who was the last fluent speaker of their language to die :/

I'm learning it in hopes I can be at least a small help in bringing Tongva back. I finally got my grammar book today!

Anoonimusn'e Netwaanyan!

My name is anonymous!