Saturday, 30 October 2010

Sentence 4.13

Nam, bodú kusshim tôkí

No, I don't smoke.

In the middle of a dialogue that is diverted off subject to talk about cigarettes this sentence turns up! As we say in New Zealand Yeah, Right. If you need that explained I suggest you goggle the Tui Billboard ads, a surprisingly robust ad campaign for a New Zealand brewery that has been going on for several years. I have translated the tag into Brithenig (Si, druith), haven't done it for this language yet. Give it time.

The phrase for smoking tobacco is kuhant tôkí, eating tobacco. In Dialogue 2 the phrase Have you eaten yet? as a courtesy phrase was introduced. The past tense of the verb is baget (from Greek phago). So we have two stems for eat-verbs. Kus- or kuhant for eating food in general, and baget as the past tense.

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