Mingo Mini-Lesson (1)

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Lost Arrow :: Part I, Sentence 1

Ne' ne haya'tí haksa'aa hanôkek ne kanöhsa'ôwe kahatakô.
There was a little boy who lived all alone in a house in the forest.

ne'  ::  clause marker particle

This particle occurs at the beginnings of many Mingo sentences.  The job of the particle ne' is to mark the boundary between one sentence and the next, as well as one clause, or major part of the sentence, and the next. The English word that comes closest to the meaning of ne' in Mingo is "that", in sentences such as:

However, "that" is used in several other ways that ne' isn't, and vice-versa, so it's not very reliable as a translation. The best way to learn how to use ne' is simply by observing how it is used in conversations
and stories, rather than trying to rely on one hard-and-fast rule.

ne  ::  phrase marker particle

The job of this particle is to mark the boundary between one phrase, or major part of a clause, and the next.  Sometimes people think that the particle ne means the same as English "the", since it often occurs in front of nouns, just like "the" does.  However, there are many places where ne occurs that "the" doesn't, and vice-versa, so it makes for a bad and misleading translation.  So, just like with ne', the best way to learn how
to use ne is just by reading and listening to lots of sentences, to get the feel for where it belongs.

haya'tí  ::  he is by himself, he is alone

This word is composed of: ha- "he", -ya'tí "be alone, be by yourself".  We can change the prefix to change who it is that's alone:

kya'tí  --  I'm alone, by myself
sya'tí  --   you're alone, by yourself
haya'tí  --  he's alone, by himself
yeya'tí  --  she's alone, by herself
kaya'tí  --  it's alone, by itself (ref. to an animal)

If we look closely at these words, we can spot the following prefixes, with the following meanings.
 
k-
I
s-
you
ha-
he
ye-
she
ka-
it

This pattern of prefixes is one of the most common prefix patterns in Mingo.  We'll call this prefix pattern the "Agent-C Pattern", for reasons we'll see later on.  Using this pattern, you'll be able to take one new
word, and turn it into five new words, thereby greatly increasing the speed with which you can acquire and use new vocabulary in Mingo.

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