Ngehu

Ngehu (also called Lo Ngehu or simply Hu) is the main language spoken by the Ngehu people of Awa. Although little is known of the history of the language, both its oral history and its unusual structure point towards an origin as a consciously constructed language.

It is a right-branching, strongly isolating language, notable for its largely oligoanalytic lexicon, its complete lack of verbs other than the non-inflecting copula i, and the lack of any contrastive voicing, with all phonemes except /h/ being voiced. The lexicon is made up entirely of around 190 syllabic roots with a single basic meaning and these are combined in various ways to make more precise meanings. For example, the root zwa has the core meaning of 'water' but may, when qualified by other roots, refer to other liquids. Ni means, as its central meaning, 'air' or 'gas' but may also mean 'quality' or 'characteristic' (much as the word 'air'does in English as in 'an air of superiority') or simply anything that is invisible. Together these roots may be combined to form zwani 'rain' (a type of water defined by something to do with air, namely that it falls from it) or nizwa 'cloud, fog, mist' (a type of air defined by something to do with water, namely that it is filled with it).

Phonology

Because of the differing oral anatomy of the Hu, the exact phonology of Lo Ngehu is difficult to replicate accurately in the non-Hu mouth. The underbite and tusks (protruding lower canines) of the Hu make it difficult for them to pronounce labiodental sounds such as /f/ and /v/ in English, in which the lower lip touches the upper teeth. They do, however, possess a dentolabial sound /v͆/, whereby the upper lip makes contact with the lower teeth. Non-Hu learners of Lo Ngehu will be perfectly understood pronouncing this sound labiodentally. Likewise, the rounding of the vowels /o/ and /u/ as well as the consonant /w/ is not identical to the rounding performed with non-Hu lips. These differences are small enough to more or less be ignored by the non-Hu learner of Hu.

Consonants

All consonants of Lo Ngehu are voiced aside from /h/.

	Bilabial	Dentolabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	b /b/		d /d~ɾ/	(dy [d͡ʒ])	g /ɡ/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/		ng /ŋ/
Prenasalised plosive	mb /mb/		nd /nd/	(ndy [nd͡ʒ])	ngg /ŋɡ/
Fricative		v /v͆/	z /z/	(zy [ʒ])		h /h~ɦ/
Lateral			l /l/
Semivowel				y /j/	w /w/

The prenasalised stops /^mb/, /ⁿd/ and /^ŋɡ/ are pronounced with an unstressed syllabic nasal when utterance initial. Otherwise, the nasal component may appear to attach as a coda to the following syllable. For example, mba 'house' is [m̩.ˈba] when utterance initial but the phrase hi mba 'this house' is [him.ˈba].

The semivowel /j/ has a palatalising effect on the preceding consonant, most notably blending with /d ⁿd z/ to become [d͡ʒ ⁿd͡ʒ ʒ] respectively. The sequences /hj/ and /hw/ tend to be pronounced [ʍ] and [ç] respectively.

Vowels

	front	central	back
close	i		u
open mid	e		o
low		a

The true values of the vowels /a e i o u/ tend to be closer to [ä ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ] although, for simplicity's sake, they are usually transcribed with <a e i o u> even in narrow phonetic transcription. Each vowel has a fairly wide allophonic range and the cardinal [a e i o u] values fall within these ranges.

The high vowels /i u/ have non-syllabic allophones, [i̯~j] and [u̯~w] respectively. These appear when these vowels are unstressed and following another vowel.

Phonotactics

Phonemically, only open syllables are allowed in Lo Ngehu, with the maximum structure being CCV whereby the second consonant must be a semivowel. Phonetically, the nasal segment of a prenasalised stop may close the preceding syllable. In addition, the non-syllabic allophones of the vowels /i u/ may also occur in the coda of a syllable, creating phonetic syllables such as [dwejm] in dwe i mbwe "They are dangerous." The sequences /ji/ and /wu/ do not occur except in the sequences /dji zji ⁿdji/ where the palatalisation of the preceding consonant enables the /j/ to be distinguished.

Word classes

Nouns

Nouns in Ngehu are entirely uninflected and have only one form each, with no changes for number (plural or singular) or, with few exceptions, case. They may comprise a single monosyllabic root or be a compound of two or more noun roots together.

Nouns make up the equivalent of most other parts of speech found in other languages. For example, instead of a class of verbs, Ngehu uses agent nouns with a copula particle. Thus, instead of saying "I write a book" with verb equivalent to 'write', the equivalent sentence is syntactically equivalent to the sentence "I am a writer of a book." Words such as "writer" or "one who knows" are glossed here as "write.AG" and "know.AG", with "AG" standing for "agent". The equivalent of adjectives are glossed with "E" standing for "entity", for example "small.E" is the gloss for a noun meaning "small entity" (i.e. small person or thing).

Na i ngegyo ya ndyolya.
na	i	ngegyo	ya	ndyolya
1s	COP	write.AG	GEN	book
"I"	"am"	"writer"	"of"	"book"
I write a book.
I am a writer of a book.

Noun roots

A large number of nouns are comprised only of a single, monosyllabic morpheme. These may have fairly broad meanings, such as ngo 'person', ndu 'low entity', 'entity which is below', lya 'flattish object' (typically 'leaf' but also 'feather', 'scale (of fish)', 'sheet of paper', 'page', 'blade (of knife)' etc.).

Compounding

Noun compounds come in two types: NOUN+NOUN and, much more uncommonly, PARTICLE+NOUN.

NOUN+NOUN Compounds

NOUN+NOUN compounds are always head-first. This means that the first element of the compound defines what thing the compound refers to, while anything that comes after it narrows the scope of the meaning. This is the reverse order from compounding in English. For example, the noun mbi 'large, terrestrial animal' and the noun mba 'house', 'building', can be combined to give either mbimba 'cat', or mbambi 'stable', 'pen', 'kennel'. A cat is essentially a "house-animal" and a stable, pen or kennel is an "animal-house", but the elements in each compound are the reverse order from those in English.

Nouns that generally correspond to adjectives or verbs in translation may also be involved in compounds and these compounds may be a little bit harder to understand for learners.

For example, from the word mbo meaning 'entity which stays, remains, keeps (a certain way) or waits' (gloss: stay.AG), the following compounds are derived:

• mboho = patient.E (from ho 'good entity', thus literally a "good-stayer", "one who waits in some way characterised by something 'good'", a 'good-waiter')
• mbomu = remember.AG (from mu 'knowing one', thus, literally a "knower-stayer", "one who stays knowing", "one who remains in regard to knowing")
• mbozyo = stubborn.E (from zyo 'head', thus literally a "head-stayer", "one who stays in regards to the head")

From the word da meaning 'large entity', the following compounds are derived:

• dazwi = tall.E (from zwi 'high entity', thus literally a "high-big-one", "one that is large in terms of being high")
• davyo = wide.E (from vyo 'side', thus literally a "side-big-one", "one that is large in reference to sides")
• damwo = buxom.E (from mwo 'lump', 'bump', 'hill', 'breast', thus literally "one who is large in reference to bumps")
• danggo = well.endowed.E (from nggo 'stick', 'rod', 'penis', thus literally "one who is large in reference to a rod")

PARTICLE+NOUN Compounds

PARTICLE+NOUN compounds are not common. The particle is restricted to being the first element as it must be stressed in order to indicate that it is part of a noun. The most common example are the words with do, a conjunction essentially meaning "and then". A dongo, literally an "and.then-person" is an offspring of someone, a son or daughter, a child of someone (even as an adult, cf. dingo 'child', meaning a non-adult person, from di 'small one' plus ngo 'person').

Pronouns

The pronouns in Ngehu are simply nouns and do not differ syntactically from other nouns in their use, although most of them do have a genitive contraction. Many of the pronouns are compounds.

Personal

The personal pronouns of Ngehu mark for three types of clusivity: exclusive, inclusive of third person, and inclusive of second person. The third person pronoun is generally glossed as DEF.E (definite entity) as it is used as a definite article in a lot of situations. The forms separated by slashes are alternative variants.

Absolutive Pronouns

Person	Singular	Exclusive Plural	Inclusive of 3rd	Inclusive of 2nd
1st	na	nana / wena	dena / wena	wana
2nd	wa	wawa / wewa	wade	-
3rd	de	dwe / de (we)	-	-

The distinction between the nana / wena "we" and wana "we" is that the latter includes any listeners whereas the former does not. In the second person, wawa / wewa is used to refer to a group with all members present and being addressed. Wade refers to a group whose members are not all present or being spoken to.

All the pronouns have distinct genitive forms equivalent to being preceded with ya. For example, ya na is equivalent to nga, with the former being more emphatic and the latter being more common. The forms are shown in the following table.

Genitive Pronouns

Person	Singular	Exclusive Plural	Inclusive of 3rd	Inclusive of 2nd
1st	nga	ngana / vyena	zyina / vyena	wona
2nd	wo	wowa / vyewa	wode	-
3rd	zyi	zyi (we) / zy'we	-	-

Note that zyi we is often pronounced as one syllable, losing the /i/. This is sometimes indicated in writing as zy'we.

Modified and replaced pronouns

Any of the pronouns may be followed by any of the kinds of modifiers that any other noun can. Appositional modifiers are quite frequent. Wa da is used as an honorific when speaking to those of higher rank. When speaking to the emperor, however, speakers avoid the above listed pronouns entirely and refer to him simply with the word mwadava 'emperor'. People addressing the emperor humble themselves by referring to themselves as na di unless given permission not to.

In the third person, when talking about a number of people or things, modifiers are frequently used to disambiguate between referents that would otherwise all be referred to as de. Some commonly used phrases are de la 'the non-Ngehu person', de hu 'the Ngehu', de ngo 'the person', de nu 'the thing'. These are also very commonly used without de, as definiteness tends not to be marked explicitly except through the use of the genitive form zyi.

Reciprocal

The reciprocal pronoun is dede 'each other', 'one another'. It has the genitive form zyide.

Wena i le zyide.
wena	i	le	zyide
1p.EXCL	COP	love.AG	GEN.each_other
We love each other.

Hu gwe ndudu i li dede.
hu	gwe	ndudu	i	li	dede
man	and	frog	COP	become.AG	each_other
The man and the frog swapped bodies.
Lit.: The man and the frog became each other.

Reflexive

Reflexive pronouns may be formed by adding zu to any of the personal pronouns. In the first and second persons, it is suffixed, -zu, but is only used emphatically to emphasise reflexivity and otherwise dropped. In the third person, the zu is a separate word and it is the important part of the phrase, with the de able to be dropped.

Absolutive Pronouns

Person	Singular	Exclusive Plural	Inclusive of 3rd	Inclusive of 2nd
1st ABS	na(zu)	nana(zu) / wena(zu)	dena(zu) / wena(zu)	wana(zu)
1st GEN	nga(zu)	ngana(zu) / vyena(zu)	zyina(zu) / vyena(zu)	wona(zu)
2nd ABS	wa(zu)	wawa(zu) / wewa(zu)	wade(zu)	-
2nd GEN	wo(zu)	wowa(zu) / vyewa(zu)	wode(zu)	-
3rd ABS	(de) zu / dezu	(dwe) zu / (de we) zu / dwezu	-	-
3rd GEN	zyizu / ya zu	zyizu (we)	-	-

Quite frequently, -zu attaches as a compound element on to the end of other nouns in order to create a lexical reflexive. This is quite like the English prefixes auto- and self-, as in autoerotic, self-destruct. Compare the following three sentences.

Na i ze ngu nga.
na	i	ze	ngu	nga
1s	COP	NEG.E	murder.AG	GEN.1s
I'm not going to kill myself.

Na i ze ngu ngazu.
na	i	ze	ngu	ngazu
1s	COP	NEG.E	murder.AG	GEN.1s.REFL
I'm not going to kill myself (but possibly others).

Na i ze nguzu.
na	i	ze	nguzu
1s	COP	NEG.E	murder.self.AG
I'm not going to commit suicide.

It should be noted that the reflexive pronouns are not used to highlight the subject, as they can in English. This is instead done by repeating the subject in an adjunctive modifier.

Na i ze ngu o na.
na	i	ze	ngu	u	na
1s	COP	NEG.E	murder.AG	ADJN	1s
I'm not going to kill (anyone) myself.

Indefinite

Indefinite pronouns are, in many cases such as in the subject, able to be simply omitted, owing to the propensity of subjectless sentences to be interpreted as containing an unspoken indefinite subject.

I nye zowa.
i	nye	zowa
COP	current.E	move.to.2S.AG
"is"	"current one"	"one who comes to you"
Someone/something is coming.

The three most important words that are frequently used as indefinite pronouns are:

• nwa = one, something, someone [countable, singular]
• we = some, plural, more than one [countable, plural]
• mbwo = some, substance [uncountable]

Each of these has its own genitive contraction:

• ya nwa → mbya = of one, of something, of someone
• ya we → vye = of some, of plural, of more than one
• ya mbwo → mbyo = of some, of a substance

In addition to these, generic nouns such as ngo 'person' and nu 'thing' may be used indefinitely.

Due to the tendency of most nouns to be interpreted as definite when they are in the subject, indefinite subjects, when not simply omitted are generally used in a kind of cleft-sentence which places them in the predicate, being followed by what is more or less a relative clause.

I ngo ye nye zowa.
i	ngo	ye	nye	zowa
COP	person	ATTR	current.E	move.to.2S.AG
"is"	"person"	"that is"	"current one"	"one who comes to you"
Someone is coming.
There is a person who is coming.

Na i zi vwe mbya.
na	i	zi	vwe	mbya
1S	COP	PRF.E	see.AG	GEN.one
"I"	"am"	"former one"	"seer"	"of one"
I saw something/someone.

Na i zi vwe ya nu.
na	i	zi	vwe	ya	nu
1S	COP	PRF.E	see.AG	GEN	thing
"I"	"am"	"former one"	"seer"	"of"	"thing"
I saw something.

Na i zi vwe ya ngo.
na	i	zi	vwe	ya	ngo
1S	COP	PRF.E	see.AG	GEN	person
"I"	"am"	"former one"	"seer"	"of"	"someone"
I saw someone.

Interrogative

The interrogative pronoun ma is equivalent to "who" or "what" in that it stands in for a noun or noun phrase which is being asked about. When used with another noun, it more or less means "which" or "what". To specifically limit the referent to a person or to a thing, ma ngo 'which person', 'who' or ma nu 'which thing', 'what' may be used. Both of these are also found as compounds: mango 'who' and manu 'what'. Ma has no inherent aspect, meaning that it may just as easily ask for a short-term nominal description of a referent (e.g. "eater", "sleeper", "entity which is here") as a longer-term description (e.g. "person", "father", "dog", "table"). Thus it can, in conjunction with the copula, also essentially mean "do what".

Wa i ma?
wa	i	ma
2s	COP	what/who
Who are you?
What are you?
What are you doing?

Hi e ma?
hi	e	ma
DEM.E	COP	what/who
What is this?
Who is this?
What is this (person/thing) doing?

Combination with other nouns in a noun phrase resolves ambiguity.

Wa i hwa ma?
wa	i	hwa	ma
2s	COP	do.AG	what/who
What are you doing?

Wa i lu ma?
wa	i	lu	ma
2s	COP	located.E	what/who
Where are you?

Other interrogative meanings such as "why" and "how" are formed by the use of ma in conjunction with generic nouns such as zye 'reason', 'cause', nde 'reason', 'goal' and ndo 'manner'.

Ma i nde zyu wa i luwa?
ma	i	nde	zyu	wa	i	luwa
what	COP	goal	GEN.C	2S	COP	located.by.2S.E
Why are you here?
What are you here for?

De i ngu zyi u ndo i ma?
de	i	ngu	zyi	u	ndo	i	ma
DEF.E	COP	kill.AG	GEN.DEF	ADV	manner/method	COP	what
How did he kill it?

Clauses

Appellative clauses

The simplest sentence type in Wena is an appellative clause, which consists of a single bare noun-phrase. The function of these clauses is to name the addressee. The meaning is the same as a clause beginning with Wa i ... 'You are ...' although in tone it is much more direct. The closest equivalent in English are the kind of vocative exclamations such as "Idiot!" or "Creep!" which are not used to gain attention but instead to make an assertion about the addressee (i.e. not "Hey, creep!" but "You are a creep!").

Vwindu!

vwindu

lowlife.scum

(You are) lowlife scum!

Hyo!

hyo

sweet.E

You are sweet!

Lit: Sweet person/thing!

Zyendu ya nggu!
zyendu	ya	nggu
drop.AG	GEN	money
You dropped some money!
Lit: Money dropper!

Direct imperatives take the form of appellatives beginning with he 'one who should'.

He zomba!
he	zomba
should.AG	go_home.AG
(You should) go home!
Lit: One who should go home!

In giving extremely direct forceful orders, the he is dropped and the order is told as if it were a fact, similar to orders that start with 'You will ...'.

Byebye hi bu!
byebye	hi	bu
permanently_leave.AG	DEF.E	island
You will leave this island and never return!
Lit: Permanent leaver of this island!

No u na i dyo zyi va nggu wo!
no	u	na	i	dyo	zyi	va	nggu
give.AG	ADJN	1s	COP	acquire.AG	GEN.DEF.E	everything	money
You will give me all of your money!
Lit: Person who gives me all of the money!

Predicate clauses

Predicate clauses consist of nothing but a predicate, which itself consists of the copula (or predicate marker) i of a noun phrase introduced by the copula. The missing subject in these sentences can, without further context, be thought of as representing an unspoken "someone" or "something". They therefore often have an existential meaning.

I nivi.
i	nivi
COP	problem
(Someone or something) is a problem.
I.e. There is a problem.

I nivi.
i	nivi
COP	problem
(Someone or something) is a problem.
I.e. There is a problem.

I gwa nwevwa..
i	gwa	nwevwa
COP	two.E	banana
(Someone or something) is two bananas.
There are two bananas.

Predicate clauses are often used rather like a passive construction.

I mo zyi we dyenggi nga..
i	mo	zyi	we	dyenggi	nga
COP	consume.AG	GEN.DEF.E	PL.E	sago_cake	GEN.1s
Someone (or something) ate my sago cakes.
There is an eater of my sago cakes.

Note the difference between this and a true passive formed with a prefixed ne-.

We dyenggi nga i nemo.
we	dyenggi	nga	i	ne-mo
PL.E	sago_cake	GEN.1s	COP	PASS-consume.AG
My sago cakes are/were/have been eaten.

In context, the unstate subject may refer to a specific entity understood from context. For example, after being asked the question "Where is the banana?" the answer may be ...

I lu vumbadi.
i	lu	vumbadi
COP	LOC.E	bathroom
(It's) in the bathroom.

Note that removing the copula and saying lu vumbadi would not simply mean "in the bathroom" but, being an unmarked noun phrase ("entity which is in the bathroom"), this forms an appellative sentence essentially meaning "You are in the bathroom." The copula thus appears at the beginning of short utterances warning of the presence of something.

I mongo
i	mongo
COP	crocodile
(There's a) crocodile!

I vyada
i	vyada
COP	tree
(There's a) tree!

Coordination

Wena has the following coordinating conjunctions.

Conjunction	Gloss	English
gwe	and.SIMULT / and	and simultaneously, and at the same time
do	and.SUBSEQ / then	and then, then, and subsequently
dozye	and.CONSEQ / thus	so, and therefore, and consequently
mye	but	but
agwe	or.INCL	and/or, or (and possibly both/all)
amye	XOR	or (but not both/all)

These conjunctions can all be used at any level of syntax, linking sentences, predicates, noun phrases or modifiers within noun phrases.

When more than two items are linked, the conjunction appears between each pair, unlike in English where it appears only between the last two. For example the structure A, B, and C is, in Wena, A gwe B gwe C.

Correlative coordination

The particle a (glossed: COORD) can be used to mark the beginning of a correlative phrase. They chiefly appear to disambiguate exactly which syntactic structures are being coordinated or for emphasis. The following structures exist.

a X gwe Y	both X and Y
a X do Y	first X then Y
a X dozye Y	if X then Y / the X the Y
a X mye Y	"admittedly" X but Y
a X agwe Y	either X or Y (or both)
a X amye Y	either X or Y (but not both)
a (...) ze X mye (...) ndwa Y	not X but (rather) Y
a (...) ze myegi X mye gwe Y	not only X but also Y

De i hu a gu do vwe.
de	i	hu	a	gu	do	vwe
DEF.E	COP	man	COORD	strike.AG	then	see.AG
He's a "hit first, ask questions later" kind of guy.

A i he mbo u nyo i liba da dozye zyamo i liba homo.

a

i

he

mbo

u

nyo

i

liba

da

dozye

zyamo

i

liba

homo

COORD

COP

should.AG

stay.AG

ADJN

time

COP

increasingly_intense.E

large.E

thus

food

COP

increasingly_intense.E

tasty.E

The longer you have to wait, the better food tastes.

A i bawe nya lu vumba vyewa mye i he mbomu zyu hi mbalwe i dinggu.

a

i

bawe

nya

lu

vumba

vyewa

mye

i

he

mbomu

zyu

hi

mbalwe

i

dinggu

COORD

COP

many.E

small_animal

LOC.E

room

GEN.2p

but

COP

should.AG

remember.AG

GEN.C

DEM.E

guesthouse

COP

cheap.E

Yes, admittedly your room is full of creepy crawlies, but please remember: this guesthouse is cheap.

Wa i mwe a mbo lu hi u vwevwe nyadidi amye me nga u gunggi.

wa

i

mwe

a

mbo

lu

hi

u

vwevwe

nyadidi

amye

me

nga

u

gunggi

2s

COP

able.E

COORD

stay.AG

LOC.E

DEM.E

ADJN

watch.AG

ant

XOR

accompany.AG

GEN.1s

ADJN

beat_sago.AG

You can either stay here twiddling your thumbs (lit. "watching ants") or come and beat sago with me.

Additionally, in questions, the two versions of "either ... or" can be be used with h instead of having ha appear at the beginning of the sentence. This is much more usual for the exclusive "either ... or" than the inclusive.

ha X hagwe Y	either X or Y (or both)?
ha X hamye Y	either X or Y (but not both)?