Let Them Be Heard
Discovered a new speaker last week. The speaker is, Mettah, a young feller who is descended locally from Karuk, Hupa, Yurok and Tolowa peoples as well as Apache and Yaqui tribal folks from the southwest.
He has quite a vocabulary in the Karuk and the Yurok languages already. I thought I’d test the waters with Mettah, see how he does. Afterall he’s 4 years old. I thought we’d start by recording a few expressions that are common as dirt around here.
The first word is spoken when annoyed with a person or something that has happened or to what has just been said, One can say:
hã’ii (with nasalization on all syllable).
When greeting another person(s) or when feeling lonesome for someone one can say:
ayukii (with nasalization on the final syllable).
I think Mettah passed this test of his linguistic mettle and you will probably be hearing from him from time to time. His little brother just learned to walk and is calling for his yukúkuh (shoes).
Súva nik matêevanihich,
Julian