Piil: An intro to Verbs

February 18, 2013  Monday

         Bismillah. This is an Introductory post for “Part 3: Verbs” in Tausug 101: Learning Bahasa Súg. For the list of past lessons, please go to: Lists of Lessons

         Piil the TauSúg term for Verbs comes from the Arabic “Fi’lun” or “Fi’il” (Faa-‘Ain-Laam) which means “Action” or simply put, “Verbs”. These terms are involved in actions that had been done before (past), that is being done (present), and will be done in the future (future).

         In learning any languages, learning the verbs and their different forms is perhaps one of the hardest things to do (at least for me). There are just a lot of things to consider in changing the verbs done in the present to its past tense, then the future, and so on.  This of course is also applicable to our beloved Bahasa Súg. Really, a single post like this would be enough for us to realize how complicated the Tausug Verbs and their constructions, forms and applications are. That’s why we have this “Introduction”, hopefully to make things less complicated, In shaa Allah.

         Let’s look at some examples of Piil in Bahasa Súg:

	Bahasa Súg	English
Root word	Kaun	To eat
Past	Kimaun aku tinapay.	I ate bread.
	Kiyaun ku in tinapay.	I ate the bread.
	Nakakaun aku tinapay.	I have eaten bread.
Present	Kimakaun aku tinapay.	I am eating bread.
	Kiyakaun ku in tinapay.	I am eating the bread.
	Nagkakaun aku tinapay.	I am eating bread.
Future	Kumaun aku tinapay.	I will eat bread.
	Kaunun ku in tinapay.	I will eat the bread.
	Makakaun da aku tinapay.	I will soon eat bread.

                Here, we have the root word Kaun which means “To eat” and the some of the forms it can take. If we want to use the Past form of the word Kaun, we can choose from the different past forms it has. Among those are Kimaun and Kiyaun which both means “ate” or Nakakaun which means “have eaten”.  On the other hand, to use it in Present form, we can either use Kimakaun, Kiyakaun or Nagkakaun. Same goes with the Future forms, Kumaun, Kaunun, and Makakaun.

                Tricky isn’t it?

The examples we have above are nothing but a few of the many different forms a Tausug Piil can have, depending on how it is used. This only shows how complicated the Piil  are. For a complete list of the different forms of Piil in BahasaSúg (all 43 of them!), you can download the file “Manga kapiil-piilan: Different forms of Verbs in Bahasa Sug” at the end of this post.

Before we begin learning the Piil here are some things we have to know first:

Root Words

         Tausug Piil, just like any verbs in other languages follow certain rules in word construction. They can change from one form to the other, together with their meanings, depending on how they are used in a sentence.  And one enormous factor that can help a beginner in mastering the different forms of the verbs is by knowing which part of the word is actually the Root Word (Piil Puunan*) and which is not. Of course, because the root words of each verb can always be different, knowing the Not-Root-Words (the affixes or Hurup gaganap) will be helpful. 

The Affixes used in Piil

         Affixes according to wikipedia are “units of words” attached to root words to form a new word. There are many affixes used in constructing Piil in Bahasa Sug. These are prefixes, infixes and suffixes added to the root words of a verb that changes their meanings. Here is a list of the common affixes added to Piil in Bahasa Sug:

Prefixes (added at the beginning)	Infixes (added in between)	Suffixes (added at the end)
Im-	-im-	-un/-hun
Iy-	-iy-	-an/-han
Um-	-um-	-a/-ha
Na-/Ma-		-i/-hi
Naka-/Maka-
Nag-/Mag-/Pag-
Nang-/Mang-
Pa-/Piya-/
Ka-/Kiya-
Ha-/Hika-

                By simply removing these affixes in a verb, one will be able to identify the root word and thus the meaning of the verb itself. Soon we will learn that a Piil mayexhibit attachment ofone of the affixes above singularly like Imiyan, Kumita’,and Bassahun; or with two or more affixes as in Piyabaytaan, and Naglingugan.  Familiarize with these “affixes” and things will be easier on the next lessons to come, In shaa Allah.

Changes in Sounds

         Another unique thing that is mostly found in Piil in Bahasa Sugis how letters (or sounds) can change from one form to the other. We have already learned about how the letter /D/ can change into the sound of /R/ in lesson 3##link##. In learning the verbs, there are a few more changes similar with that of letters /D/ and /R/ that we must be familiar with. They are the following:

The Letters B and P can change to /M/: Verbs starting with letters B and P will have the sound of /M/ in some form of verbs like: Bayta’ to Namayta’; Patay to Miyatay; and so on.

The Letters S and T can change to /N/: Verbs beginning with letters S and T can also take the sound of /N/ just like in Sukna’ to Nanukna’ and Taykud  to Nanaykuri.

The Letter K can change to /Ng/: Verbs starting with K like Kita’ and Kaykit can change and take the sound of /Ng/ as in Nangita’ and Nangaykit, respectively.

And of course, the Letter D can change to /R/. As learned in Lesson 3.

                POINT OF INFORMATION: The abovementioned changes don’t always happen every time the verb with the corresponding letter changes forms. There are only certain conditions when these changes are done which we will soon learn in the succeeding lessons.

BL4: Days of the Week

               Bismillah. This is the 4th Bonus lesson for “Tausug 101: Learning Bahasa Sug” by Anak Iluh. For lists of lessons, please go to: Lists of Lessons.

                Alhamdulillah, after yet another long time of no updates in this blog, we finally managed to come back. Alive. No, the lectures in Tausug 101 have not yet ended. There are still a lot of wonderful things to be learned in Bahasa Sug. We are just—how do we say this—preparing, to improve our lessons in shaa Allah. We know that our readers are already itching for the next lessons to be published. So today, we have prepared a short bonus lesson for our readers: The days of the Week.

The Days of the Week

               There are seven days of a week (of course). And because the Tausugs are among the Muslims, we also follow the Hijrah Calendar and thus the Arabic version of the “months” and “days” as well. We will not talk about the Hijrah Months coz it would take us another lesson (and another title than above); we will just talk about the names of the “days” in Bahasa Sug and other “things” that are indirectly or directly related to them.

               Adlaw is the equivalent of the English word “Day”. And Duwm, on the other hand is the equivalent of “Night”. Other terms that we must learn by heart are:

Bahasa Sug	English
Adlaw	Day
Duwm	Night
Biháun	Today
Káhapun	Yesterday
Ta’kisa	The day before yesterday
Kunsuwm	Tomorrow
Ku’nisa	The day after tomorrow (No, not the Movie.)
Duwm ini	Tonight
Kábii	Last night
Mahinaat/Maynaat	Morning
Mahapun	Afternoon
Mataas Suga	Noon
Tungaan Duwm	Midnight
Hangka pitu	A week

                Learning the terms above will make you an expert in learning the days and nights of Bahasa Sug. The names of the seven days in the week are as follows:

Ngán sin manga adlaw ha lawn sin hangka pitu

(Names of the days in a week)

Bahasa Sug	English
Ahad	Sunday
Isnin	Monday
Salása	Tuesday
Albaa	Wednesday
Hammis	Thursday
Jumaat	Friday
Sabtu’	Saturday

*Note: There are no nursery-songs for these names. Feel free to make your own.

                Now let us put those terms we just learned into applications. Here are the common statements using the “days” of the week:

Adjectives Using Sipat

          Bismillah. This is the second part of Lesson 10 in “Tausūg 101: Learning Bahasa Sūg” by Anak Iluh. For more lessons, please check out the page on “List of Lessons”.

          Last time we have introduced the common Tausūg Sipat (Adjectives), their usual structures and some of their irregular forms. Today we will talk about how a sipat is used in a sentence (At least just the easy ones, for now). Let’s begin the lesson by observing the following examples first:

Bahasa Sūg	English
bāy (our favorite example haha)	House
(1) Bāy malaggu’	Big house
(2) Malaggu’ bāy	Big house
(3) In bāy malaggu’	The house is big.
(4) Malaggu’ in bāy	The house is big.

          The first two examples are the usual way of directly describing an object (bāy, “house”) using a sipat (malaggu’, “big”). The last two examples are the ‘complete’ form of sentences as we added the noun marker in, which is the equivalent of the English article “the” (remember that noun-markers must always be placed before the noun it identifies). There are times that interchanging the orders of the two (object and sipat) does not affect the construction of the sentence whatsoever. But there are also times that one form (say examples 1 and 3, wherein the object comes before the sipat) is more preferred than the other form (examples 2 and 4, which is the opposite).

          Again, there are no grammar rules yet as how to call these forms; so for the sake of this lesson and for us to have something to use in this site only, we will make our own ‘names’ to call them. [A friendly reminder, these are not official names or rules of grammars in Bahasa Sūg. We just want to make things easier for our readers in this site. If you happen to find any mistakes here, please do inform us that we may correct them immediately. Magsukul]

          The first form is shown in examples (1) and (3) wherein the object (bāy) comes before the sipat (malaggu’). We will call this form the Object-Sipat Form or O-S Form (weird huh?). Examples (2) and (4) will be the other forms: the Sipat-Object Form or S-O Form, wherein the object comes after the sipat thus the name. We will be using the two names throughout the lesson, in sha Allah.  

Bahasa Sūg		English
O-S Form	S-O Form
badju’ malummi’	malummi’ badju	dirty shirt
sapi’ matambuk	matambuk sapi’	Fat cow
babai malingkat	malingkat babai	beautiful girl
tinapay mapasu’	mapasu’ tinapay	hot bread

Using sipat with possessive pronouns

          So, how do we say “My big house” or “His dirty shirt” in Bahasa Sūg? Again, (as we always do) let us learn from these examples:

Bahasa Sūg		English
O-S Form	S-O Form
bāy ku malaggu’	malaggu’ báy ku	my big house
badju’ niya malummi’	malummi’ badju niya	his dirty shirt
sapi’nila matambuk	matambuk sapi’nila	their fat cow

          Remember that we have learned in lessons 6 about dependent possessive pronouns (genitive form). These pronouns cannot stand alone and thus they must always come after an object. In OS Form, we observe that the pronouns ku, niya, and nila are placed after their respective objects, and before the sipats. In the SO Form, because the object already comes in the end, the pronouns are simply attached to the phrases.

Note: For all of these examples we have, the OS Form is more preferably used in conversations and is more accepted. Although they basically mean the same, the O-S Form is more, uhm, clear and easily understood. As for the reasons why… We unfortunately don’t know. Hehe. The S-O Form simply feels awkward to say or hear; there’s this “something’s missing here” feeling, so avoid using the S-O form alone with pronouns in conversing, if possible.

Sipat: Common Adjectives

           Bismillah. This is Lesson number 10 and the last lesson for Part II: Words and Phrases for “Tausug 101: Learning Bahasa Sug” by Anak Iluh. For complete lists of lessons (and to check where we are now), please go to: Lists of Lessons.

           Before we begin, let me first apologize to all of our readers for the delay of lessons for the past few weeks. Blame my Final Exams who had literally put me (and all of my classmates as well) in full battle-gear. Of course, I have to prepare for them in able to survive and make it for the next sem. Alhamdulillah, everything went well naman, and now we’re back to our tracks (yeay! *clap clap*). 

           For today’s lesson, we are going to talk about the most-sensible, most-intriguing, most-beautiful, most-awaited, and most-adjectively-described part of the sentence: the Commonly used Tausug Sipat (Adjectives).

           Tausug Sipat (from the Arabic “sifat”) are used to describe a particular object. It is basically used to give us more idea on how the object looks like; how big or small; how tall or short; how far or near; on how it smells, what color it has, etc., etc. I believe we already got the idea about a sipat, so we should move on to our next question: “How do we identify a sipat?” Here’s a short (a very short, indeed) guideline we made in identifying sipats.

Identifying Sipat.

1. Know what the sipat means.

           Of course, it goes without further explanations that the best way to identify a sipat is to know what it means; or what is its translation to English or Tagalog. At the end of this post, we have provided a download link on “Manga Kasipat-sipatan (Common Tausug Adjectives)”. Please be sure to download and print a copy later =)

      2. Know the origin of the sipat.

           Most sipats have a common similarity. They have a common denominator that distinguishes them from the other parts of the speech: Most sipat (not all) starts with the prefix “Ma-” and then followed by a noun it represents. This is also observed in Tagalog, but not in English. Let us study the examples below:

  

	Tausug	Tagalog	English
Example 1
Noun	Lingkat	Ganda	Beauty
Adjective	Malingkat	Maganda	Beautiful
Example 2
Noun	Lanab	Lása	Taste
Adjective	Malanab	Malása	Tasteful

           It can be observed that adding the prefix “Ma-” to a noun in Tausug and Tagalog languages is just like adding the suffix “-ful” to a noun in English language to turn it into an adjective. That is just how easy it is!

T101 Quiz Part 1

Bismillah.

Today is Monday. And we are suppose to publish our next lesson (Lesson 10: Tausug Adjectives). But unfortunately, due to the hectic schedules of our author, he have to take a short leave for a while (uhm, he's also hoping that the readers would understand this, in shaa Allah?)

And because we have promised to answer last week's short quiz on Lesson 9 (Conjunctions), we have to at least keep that promise. Here's the quiz last week: (if you haven't done answering them yet, try doing it now before checking the answers.)

I. Fill in the blanks using the three Tausug conjunctions “sin”, “hi” and “hinda”. Only English translations will be provided)

1. Kiyawa’ hi Jamal in butung ___ apa’ Malik. (Jamal took uncle Malik’s coconut.)
2. Nabali’ in sasapu ___ magdaragang. (The broomstick of the vendor was broken.)
3. Piyakain na in mga anak ___ kuting ini? (Where did the kittens of this cat go?)
4. In mutul ___ Morshid in nagkangiy’. (The motorbike of Morshid’s family was the one not working. –Plural--)
5. Dakdakan ku pa in badju’ ___ Inah ku. (I will wash my mother’s dress. –“Mother” here is used as an identified, proper noun.)

II. Identify if the following underlined words with “hi” and “hinda” are used either as NOUN MARKERS or as CONJUNCTIONS.

1.  In sayng biniy hi Samir. (The banana was bought by Samir.) ________________
2. Manghud hi Kamal in dimagan. (The one running is a younger brother of Kamal) _________
3. Dimá naglumba’ hi Muktar, amun anak hi Amin. (Muktar, the son of Amin, called for a race.) _____________, ______________ (two answers)
4. Hi Marwan in nangdaug. (Marwan is the one who won.M) __________.

Answer all the items before clicking READ MORE.

And here are the correct answers (and some explanations why):

Test I. "sin", "hi" or "hinda"

1. Kiyawa' hi Jamal in butung hi apa' Malik. (we use "hi" because "Apa' Malik" is a proper, singular noun)
2. Nabali' in sasapu sin magdaragang. ("magdaragang", is a common noun)
3. Piyakain na in mga anak sin kuting ini? ("kuting", is a common noun)
4. In mutul hinda Morshid nagkangiy'. (Morshid is a proper noun, and we are referring to him and his family, which makes us use the plural form "hinda")
5. Dakdakan ku pa in badju hi/sin Inah ku. ("Inah" can either be a proper noun (My mother) or a common noun (mother). Both are accepted.)

Test II. Conjunction or Noun Marker.

1. In saying biniy hi Samir. = Noun Marker (NM); "biniy" is a verb and "Samir" a noun, is being identified.
2. Manghud hi Kamal in dimagan. = Conjunction (CO). "Manghud" is our Noun1 and "Kamal" is our Noun 2. (please see lesson 9: Conjunctions)
3. Dimá naglumba' hi Muktar, amun anak hi Amin. = The first underlined items: NM; "naglumba'" is a verb and "Muktar" is our identified noun. The second set of items: CO; "anak" is our Noun1 and "Amin" our Noun2.
4. Hi Marwan in nangdaug. = NM; This is more obvious. When the article "hi/hinda" is placed at the very beginning of the sentence, it's always an NM identifying a noun, in this case, "Marwan".

Alhamdulillah, we are done with the first quiz. Expect more of these in our following lessons. Hope you enjoyed this session and learned something today. Have a blessed week everyone!  

We will keep you posted on when our Lesson #10 will be published. Just go to our FB Page at: www.facebook.com/Tausug101 and click LIKE.

Salam Kasilasa!

Lesson 9: Conjunctions I

          Bismillah. This is the 9th lesson on “Tausug 101: Learning Bahasa Sug” by Anak Iluh. For lists of lessons, please go to: Lists of Lessons. There is a short quiz at the end of this lesson.

          In the previous lesson, we have learned the three noun markers “in”, “hi” and “hinda”. We have differentiated the three markers on how they are used as indicators of nouns (“in” for proper nouns and “hi/hinda” for common nouns). These three noun markers actually have their other form: they can also exist and function as conjunctions! In this lesson, we will discuss the conjunction forms of these three articles and their usage. Apparently, all of the three conjunctions we are about to tackle, are forms equivalent of the same, common term: the conjunction “of”.

The Conjunction “sin”

          The Tausug conjunction “sin” corresponds to the English conjunction “of” and the Tagalog “ng” which basically denotes possession. And just like the article “in”, “sin” is only used with common (improper) nouns or objects. Maybe we can say, “sin” is the conjunction form of “in”. Let us study the examples below:

Format: <Noun 1> + sin + <Noun 2>

Langguage	Example 1	Example 2
Tausug	Lawang sin báy.	Taumpa’ sin bagay ku.
Tagalog	Pintuan ng bahay.	Sapatos ng kaibigan ko.
English	(The) door of the house.	(The) shoe of my friend.

*NOTE: There are other forms and usage of the word “sin” in a sentence, but for now, we will only focus on this form.

          In Example 1, the first noun Lawang (Door) is followed by our conjunction “sin”; then by the second common noun Báy (House, which is a common noun). When this kind of word order happens (that is, “sin” is in between two nouns), the first noun or object <Noun 1> will basically become a part or property of the second noun or object <Noun 2>. This is what we mean by “possession”; Noun 1 is possessed by Noun 2. So in the example “Lawang sin báy”, we are informed that the object Lawang is indeed part of the common noun, Báy. 

          Same principles govern the second example, but in here we are now using a common, personal noun Bagay (Friend) instead of an object. The first noun Taumpa’ (Shoe) is a ‘possession’ of the second noun, Bagay.

Conjunctions “hi” and “hinda”

          Remember in lesson 8, we have discussed the primary forms of “hi” and “hinda” as noun markers. This time we will meet their other forms (although without changing spellings) as equivalents of the possessive conjunction “of”.  

          Also following their Noun-marker forms, the conjunctions “hi” and “hinda” are both used with proper nouns (esp. names of persons) or identified objects only. And because they also function as equivalents of the conjunction “of”, they also denote possession. These two are the same as the Tagalog conjunctions “ni” and “nina”. Here are a few examples:

Also following the same format:

<Noun 1> + hi + <Name 2> for singular n.

<Noun 1> + hinda + <Name 2> for plural n.

Langguage	Singular	Plural
Tausug	Báy hi Omar.	Bagay hinda Sandra.
Tagalog	Bahay ni Omar.	Kaibigan nina Sandra.
English	(The) house of Omar.	(A) Friend of Sandra (and others).

The Noun Markers “in”, “hi” and “hinda”

Bismillah. This is the 9th lesson on “Tausug 101: Learning Bahasa Sug” by Anak Iluh. For lists of lessons, please go to: Lists of Lessons.

In constructing simple sentences in Bahasa Sug (which we will be discussing soon, in sha Allah), we need to know how NOUNS in a sentence are identified. There are, in fact, a number of noun markers that exists in Bahasa Sug. These are articles that let us know whether the one being identified as a subject or a direct object in a conversation is indeed a noun. In this lesson, we will introduce the first three Noun Markers: In, Hi and Hinda (as the name suggests, any words following these 3 markers are always considered to be “nouns”).

The Article “In”

The Tausug article “In” is the equivalent of the English articles “The” and “a/an”. It is almost always used before the “object” it is identifying (the noun). Article “In” is usually followed by improper nouns—nouns that are not absolutely identified or named—and can be used both for subjects and objects of the verb. Let’s see the sentence construction below:

As indicator of subject:

Báy	House
In báy	The House
In báy malingkat.	The House is beautiful.

                

As indicator of direct object:

In báy	The house
Kiyta’ ku in báy.	I saw the house.

The Tausug article “In” can also be used as the verb-to-be “is” in a sentence, such as:

Mastal	Teacher
In mastal	The teacher
Siya in mastal.	He is the teacher.

And even as indicator of the “doer” of the verb:

Nagbayta’	Told; (p.t. of bayta’, “tell”)
…in nagbayta’ káku’…	…the one who told me...
Hi Ahmad in nagbayta’ káku’.	Ahmad is the one who told me.
(An exception: in this example, the article “In” follows a verb instead of a noun)

It will be observed, that the role of the article “In” is greatly affected by the kind of VERBS that are being used in a sentence. We will be discussing this in our upcoming Lessons in Tausug Verbs (Lesson 12 onwards) in sha Allah.

Articles “Hi” and “Hinda”

Another pair of Tausug articles important to be learned is the two Personal Noun Markers: “Hi” and its plural form, “Hinda”. They have almost the same function as the article “In”—identifying nouns either as subjects, objects or doers of the verb. But these two articles are used only with Proper names, particularly names of people (including the ‘people-callings’ like mother, father, uncle, etc.).