Conlang Relay 17/Nesheti

by Tony Hogard

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Nesheti text

Anizu muzke hulat asin eti krespak aswas. Bir aswa meshatut, ge antuza heyihan. Femest, an niharkut antuzak is weredit kus amidan adek. Anda antuza hular fesnun, supala wapiyat is panut nap aten. Pravine, an baruzat zalyenikak is wenizit adek. Tepitalaba is panulaba kus patalan adek, aswa kweyat muzkek. Uskilaba, sfinal anda harunak sfisine is kivane rad.

Translation

English translation of previous text

(Ndok Aisô, by Jan Strasser)

A horse is angry

Once upon a time, a peasant tried to sit on the back of his workhorse. But the horse did not let him ride; instead it shook him off and hurt him severely. When the man tried to run away, the animal screamed and kicked at him. Indeed, it attacked that unfortunate person and struck him down! By trampling on him and kicking him with its feet, the horse killed the peasant.

On seeing this, the pigs in the stable squealed and rejoiced.

Vocabulary

amid	N	strength
an	PRON	3SG common pronoun (ACC adek; DAT aten; GEN ates)
anda	PP	within, during
anizu	ADV	one time, once
antuza	N	person, man
asin	V	to sit
aswa	N	horse
baruzan	V	to attack
bir	CJ	but, however
wapiyan	V	to roar, to wail
wenizin	V	to knock down, to defeat
weredin	V	to injure
ge	ADV	relative particle
eti	PP	on, atop
is	CJ	and
-k	case	ACC marker
kweyan	V	to kill
kivan	V	to become
krespa	N	back (of body)
kus	PP	with, via, by means of
-l	number	plural marker
-laba	aspect	active participle
meshatun	V	to stop, to prevent
muzke	N	peasant, commoner
-n	case	DAT marker
nap	PP	to, towards
-ne	aspect	3PL conjugation
niharkun	V	to throw away, to throw off
panun	V	to kick
pata	N	foot
pravine	ADV	truly, indeed
-r	aspect	S past conjugation
rad	ADJ	happy
-s	case	GEN marker
supala	N	animal
sfina	N	pig
sfisin	V	to squeal
-t	aspect	3SG conjugation
tepitan	V	to trample, to stomp
uskin	V	to see
femest	CJ	instead, rather
fesnun	V	to escape, to flee
haruna	N	barn
heyihan	V	to ride
hulan	V	to attempt
zalyenik	N	pitiable person

ABBREVIATIONS:

ADJ		adjective
ADV		adverb
CJ		conjunction
N		noun
PP		preposition
PRON		pronoun
V		verb

case		nominal case affixes
number		nominal number affix
aspect		verbal aspect affixes

Grammar Notes

Common gender nouns include people, animals, fire, moving water, and astronomical and meteorological phenomena. Other nouns are neuter.

Nesheti usually has SVO word order. Adjectives and adverbs follow the nouns or verbs they modify.

Nouns are declined for accusative, dative, and genitive cases.

Verbs are conjugated for future, present, past (imperfective, habitual or continual action), and preterite (perfective, completed action), and agree with their subjects in person and number.