Lesson 6: Identification: Part II

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In order to ask more specific questions, we'll need to learn words for different kinds of people.  To start with, we can add the words for 'man' and 'woman' to questions we already know.

Të'ë na'u't hayásö ne hôkwe?        What is the man called?
Të'ë na'u't yeyásö ne yakôkwe?      What is the woman called?

Note that it is important to use «hôkwe» 'man' with the he-form of the verb, «hayásö» 'he is called', and likewise to use «yakôkwe» 'woman' with the she-form of the verb, «yeyásö» 'she is called'.

Also note the little word «ne».  This is one of the most frequent words in Mingo, and also one of the hardest to translate.  It typically occurs in front of nouns, such as «hôkwe» and «yakôkwe».

To answer these questions, we can use the following patterns:

Bill hayásö ne hôkwe.              The man is called Bill.
Susie yeyásö ne yakôkwe.           The woman is called Susie.

If the people you are talking about are younger, you can instead use the words for 'boy' and 'girl'.

Të'ë na'u't hayásö ne haksa'aa?    What is the boy called?
Të'ë na'u't yeyásö ne yeksa'aa?    What is the girl called?

Sometimes, you'll want to pick out just one person from among a group of people.  To do this, you can replace the little word «ne» with the words «nêkê» and «huikê».

Të'ë na'u't hayásö nêkê hôkwe?     What is this man called?
Të'ë na'u't hayásö huikê hôkwe?    What is that man called?



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