How to say "I am Happy"?

        Bismillah. Among the word-translations that I received from emails, the most commonly asked are also the easiest to work on like, “How do you say ‘I am happy’ in Tausug? Or ‘I am tired’?” In this extra post (because it is not part of the Grammar Lessons), we will talk about the simplest form of sentences we can ever find in Bahasa Sug. Special mentions to Jaafar and Dayang ni D for this post.

        When a Tausug is happy, he would only need two words to express it (other than a smile or a good laugh). The statement is:

        “Makuyag aku.”              I am happy.

        (where Makuyag is the word for “happy” and aku is the pronoun for “I”.)

    
        The structure of this sentence is so simple. First you state the condition (usually an adjective; here we used makuyag, “happy”) then you state the subject (who is acting or experiencing that condition; here we used aku, “I” or “me”).  And tadaa! You have constructed a simple sentence (the simplest so far) in Bahasa Sug.

        Let us try to change the pronoun aku with other pronouns. The following examples will be useful to beginners in Bahasa Sug.

Makuyag + <pronoun>	English
Makuyag kaw.	You are happy.
Makuyag siya.	He/She is happy.
Makuyag kita.	We are happy. (dual, including the listener)
Makuyag kitaniyu	We are happy. (pl., including the listener)
Makuyag kami.	We are happy. (pl., excluding the listener)
Makuyag kamu.	You are happy. (plural)
Makuyag sila.	They are happy.

Learn more about Pronouns in Lesson 5-7, in sha Allah.

We can also change the <Adjective> makuyag to the following words (also adjectives):

Malingkat             (Beautiful, usually used with females.)
Malingkat usug     (Beautiful Man, when referring to males.)
Malaul (Tired)                    

Mahapdi’ (Hungry)                          

Mauhaw (Thirsty)
Malanjang (Tall)               

Matambuk (Fat)                               

 Makayug (Thin)

(Learn more about  Adjectives and how they are made in Lesson 10, in sha Allah)

Do your own experiments. Construct your own simple Tausug Sentences using the above examples.

I hope you will enjoy learning something today :-)
Keep sending emails to anakiluhmd@gmail.com

Until next time!
-Anak Iluh