Apatani Dictionary

Introduction

This page is a dynamic Tanii language dictionary.

Usage

Entries: Each headword gives the basic form of the word. It is followed by the lexical category (noun, adjective, verb, adverb, etc.), and a concise definition. Some entries, especially those related to Apatani culture, required additional information, which is given under the abbreviated label Encycl. Example phrases or clauses with translation are often provided, as well as synonyms (Syn.) and antonyms (Ant.), the latter especially for adjectives. Compound-words are grouped under a common headword.

Verbs: Verbs appear in their basic form, that is mostly without the set of meaningful suffix-like elements which in conversation, most often occur on them. This basic form can be regarded as broadly equivalent to the infinitive form in English, though Apatani does not have infinitive in the strict sense. In their simplest form, those are monosyllabic “verbal roots” (v-r.). The various suffixed elements inflect the meaning of the verb, modifying its aspect, mood or tense, and their number can be as high as six or seven. It is of course not possible to list all those suffixed forms. At the same time, providing only monosyllabic verbs is clearly not enough, so we had to compromise. For the sake of convenience, both verbal roots (such as dii ‘to eat’), together with a dependent set of disyllabic common derivatives (such as diibo ‘to eat along with others’) are listed in the dictionary. Besides, most commonly found suffix combinations are provided as separate entries, preceded by a hyphen, under the label vsuff. (verbal suffix). The hyphen indicates that these are not grammatical words, but dependent units attached to verbs or adjectives, for eg. prospective suffix -nedo (‘may’). Searching a verb encountered in a text as a suffixed form requires its verbal root or disyllabic first derivate to be identified first. We recommend to start searching for the two initial syllables, then, if not found, the monosyllabic root. Once the meaning of this form is identified (having either one or two syllables), the reader can turn on the suffixed part. The suffixed part is to be searched as a separate entry, it appears prefixed by a hyphen. From there the global meaning can been easily reconstructed. For example, if the suffixed form is diibalado, a first search for ‘diiba’ will give the basic meaning of the verb (‘to eat together’) and a second search for -lado will inform that this suffix is a marker of the present continuous form (‘am/are/is [do]ing’). Therefore Molu diibalado will be translated by the reader as ‘they are eating together’. Note: for dictionary searching ii, ch, kh and ng are treated as if they were four separate letters, therefore words (and letters within words) are sorted according to the following order: a,b,ch, d,e,g,h,i,ii,j,k,kh,l,m,n,ng,o,p,r,s,t,u,w,y,z According to this order, *ngiiyi occurs after *nyibu, *aku precedes *akha, and so on.

Au

au [a ́wu:] n. 1. son-in-law (equivalent to ma'bo, but used in direct addressing in place of it to express affection). 2. kin term of address applied to all people considered as classificatory sons-in- law, such as father’s brother’s son’s daughter. See: ma'bo.