More I person (naa-), a little second person (nee-)

We just discussed about naa and its derivatives. Next topic: how do we use these in short,
everyday conversation?

Lets imagine a situation where you arrive at a person's door. In the days of the past, most
people, specially the ladies - would call out:

yaa-ru?

This is a question word, much on the likes of Hindi's kaun, kyon, kya, kahaan..
We discussed some question words here. And if you observe, most Kannada question-words
begin with ya- or yE- (या , ये)

To which one would reply:

naa-nu, Suresh

More examples with respect to non-humans. Recall:

idu is a rough translation of 'yEh' as applied to non-living things.
So, idu nandu means 'yEh mEra' (hai).

The (hai) above is in brackets since while adding this word in Hindi is commonplace, Kannada
has no such custom. If you'd force me to give you the exact translation for 'yEh mEra hai' (referring to something, not someone), I'd give you: idu nandu ide. And ide stands for the same exact meaning in Hindi: 'hai'.

While 'yEh mEra hai' is strictly incomplete as it could be a someone or something,
idu nandu is always used to mean something.

i-du bag. [Remember: idu = ये (सामान)]
i-du nan-du. [ये samaan मेरा सामान]

i-du naayi. [ये कुत्ता]
i-du nan-du। [ये कुत्ता मेरा कुत्ता]

Similar to idu, we have adu, which means woh (samaan).

So,

a-du giDa. [अदू गिड़ा] (giDa - plant)
a-du nan-du. [अदू नंदू ]

a-du maraa. [अदू मरा] (maraa - tree)

Combining the -gay prefix which we introduced here,
adu nan-gay bEku (बेकू - चाहिए)
adu nam-gay bEku

Recall from this post that second person references begin with nee-.

nee-nu => tum
adu nin-du => tum-haara
idu nim-du => aap-ka

First person references..

All first person references in Kannada begin with one of न or ना.
Sample these:

naanu (नानू) - mein (Example: naanu Avinash).
naawu (नावु) - hum (Example: naawu Indians [Hint: naawu = we]).
nan- (नन-) - mEra (Example: nan mobile)
nam- (नम-) - humaara (Example: idu Bhaarata dEsha. Bhaarata nam dESha. idu namdu)

nan- has a little hyphen because it could be extended with a -du or -gay. We encountered
the -gay suffix here. Similar is the case with nam-.

idu is a rough translation of 'yEh' as applied to non-living things.
So, idu nandu means 'yEh mEra' (hai).

The (hai) above is in brackets since while adding this word in Hindi is commonplace, Kannada
has no such custom. If you'd force me to give you the exact translation for 'yEh mEra hai' (referring to something, not someone), I'd give you: idu nandu ide. And ide stands for the same exact meaning in Hindi: 'hai'.

While 'yEh mEra hai' is strictly incomplete as it could be a someone or something,
idu nandu is always used to mean something.

So, how do you denote something like humaara-waale?
A translation without an explanation would arrive at namm-avaru.
But this new word - namm-avaru - meanders straight into the bailiwick of the third person.
A little patience - we'll get to that eventually.

In this post, we were introduced to the -gay suffix. Applying this suffix to the 'na-' words
we encountered so far:

nan-gay (mEre-ko)
nam-gay (hum-ko)

Recall from this post that interrogatory words in Kannada begin with the 'y-' sound.
nan-gay yEnu? = mEre-ko kya?
naanu yaaru? = mein kaun?
naavu yaaru? = you tell me!
naanu yelli? = you tell me!

Key words - and keys to remember them! (Part I)

All of these are questions. Most interrogatory words in Kannada begin with the 'e' sound (e as in everywhere). Notice it in S2, LE and AK and N. If not 'e', it is 'yaa..' (yaaru). Note that these are distorted spoken forms, and the literary forms sound a lot different.

If you are a South Indian, or a North Indian who knows a South Indian language, you'll notice that interrogations across ALL South languages begin with the y- sound.

"Hey, gay" is sometimes used as "A, gay" - which makes it more in sync with the others.

There are some more interrogatory words - kab, kis, koyi.. will be back with keys for these in my next post.

dekho, suno, khaao...

Click on the image to see it bigger and better. Most verbs in any Indian language can be expressed in their English equivalents and a 'karo' or 'kariye' or kar raha hoon' can be appended. Example: drive maaDi. Browse maaDi. Drive maaDtaa idini, Browse maaDtaa idini..

But you can't stretch this example too far. There are a lot of verbs that you still need to use in their native form - otherwise you sound funny. If you hear someone say "see kar raha hoon?" wouldnt you want to whack him on the.. wherever?

Bus ali, Car ali, Box ali, Office ali..

Kannada
"Bus ali eshtu jana iddare?"

Hindi
"Bus mein kitna log hain?"

So "ali" translates to "mein" in Hindi!

The correct word for mein is actually oLage. But "ali" is used in a lot of sentences, colloquially.

If you are a Tamizhian or a Northi who knows Tamizh, oLage would come naturally to you, following from uLLa.

Shah Rukh gay..

Apologies - the above is the starting of a Kannada sentence.

now, lets continue the sentence:

Kannada
Shah Rukh gay ondu kOTi koTrante..

Hindi
Shah Rukh ko ek karOD diye..

So 'gay' in Kannada translates to a 'ko' in Hindi!

Talking to the BMTC bus conductor

Just five sentences:

Hindi
Marathalli Jaayega?

Kannada
Marathalli HOgatta?

To which his reply will just be a little nod, or "banni" (Hindi: "aayiye"), "hathkoLi" (English: "get on board") if the bus does go to Marathalli. If this is not the right bus, you might get a "hOgalla", or if the conductor wants to help, he might say,

"idu hOgalla, adu hOgatte" (yeh nahin jaayega, woh jaayega). Remember that adding "alla" to a root verb (hOg) negates the meaning. So hOg+alla (no hOg, no go).
Keep in mind that adding an alla to an affirmation (hOgatte + alla) turns it to an interrogatory confirmation ("hOgattalla?") ("jaayega naa?")

Ok, so you get the bus that indeed goes to Marathalli. One of the few sentences that you will always hear in a BMTC is "oLage banni" ("andar aayiye"), or "yaari ?" ("kaun <stop name>"). If the conductor is telling you this, and you realise there's no space to move oLage, you say "jaaga illa" ("jagah nahin hai").

You then want a ticket. "Marathalli, ondu" ("Marathalli, ek").

Next, you realise that you dont really know Marathalli all that well (first time visitor, or just plain dont know where it is), and would like the conductor (or someone) to tell you when the stop's arrived. You then say, "stop bundaaga hELi" ("stop aane waqt bataa dena"). Its then that you are most likely to hear ("yaari ") when Marathalli is next.