This course will become read-only in the near future. Tell us at community.p2pu.org if that is a problem.
The materials in this group are designed to assist a home-based learner of Shiyeyi in learning to speak and/or read & write the Shiyeyi language. Shiyeyi is a language which is spoken primarily in Botswana and Namibia.
The productivity website MindTools, on its page How to Learn a Foreign Language, says that 50% of daily conversation is composed of 100 words. This is an idea from Tony Buzan's book Use Your Memory.
While the list is English-centric, it can provide a launching point for determining Shiyeyi equivalents. Determine and learn these 100 words or the Shiyeyi equivalent forms of expression of the concepts that they embody.
Another related idea is that of semantic primitives, as an idea in NSM, from the field of semantics. The basic idea is that every language will have the same kinds of fundamental concepts expressed in their language somehow, whether by individual words or phrases, morphology or by grammatical structures. These fundamental concepts can be used to define more complex concepts. Therefore, one should (theoretically) be able to find an equal expression of the English semantic primitives in any language that they want to learn and use these to find out the meanings of other, more complex words. With that in mind, I have collected semantic primitives for a couple of the Botswana languages, Setswana and Shiyeyi.
There is some overlap between a Buzan's list of 100 words and the semantic primitives list but, together, these two should provide a solid starting point for basic vocabulary building.
Added the Buzan list and the semantic primitives list to ProVoc for vocabulary drilling. This provides a total of 190 core words. This number, however, includes the duplicates; some words need to be removed from one list or the other to provide one cohesive list. Also, I need to categorize each entry by word class for sorting purposes.
Note that Shiyeyi and Setswana both use a noun class system that affects other words in the language that co-occur with nouns, such as adjectives. Places where a word is affected by this system are shown by a _, as in the words koo_o and _otlhe. For example, in Shiyeyi, if you are mean all people, you say awatu koowo. The Setswana equivalent is batho botlhe. To say all things, this is izutu koozo in Shiyeyi and dilo tsotlhe in Setswana.
| English | Shiyeyi | Setswana |
|---|---|---|
| A, an | --- | --- |
| After | ku ldiqo | fa morago |
| Again | nangweza | gape |
| All | koo_o | _otlhe |
| Almost | --- | --- |
| Also | nangweza | gape |
| Always | rusuku kooro | nako yotlhe |
| And | indji | le |
| Because | shi ku tikya | ka gore |
| Big | _kando | _tona |
| But | mi | mme |
| (I) can | (yeme) na ku ... | (ke) ka ... |
| (I) come | (nda) ya | (ke) tsile |
| Either/or | panga | kana |
| (I) find | (nda) shangana | (ke) fitlhetse |
| First | katandzi | pele |
| For | -iz affixation on verb | -el affixation on verb |
| Friend | mbiya SG / wambiya PL | tsala SG / ditsala PL |
| From | ko | kwa |
| (I) go | (nda) yenda | (ke a) tsamaya |
| Good | _qa | _ntle |
| Goodbye | Kara naqa. | Sala(ng) sentle. |
| Happy | radze | itumetse |
| (I) have | (ndi) na | (ke) na le |
| He | ma SU / mu OB / yeye | o SU / mo OB / ene |
| Hello | Ni tishire. | Dumela(ng). |
| Here | panii | fa |
| How | aakyare / ikyare | jang |
| I | nda SU / ndi OB / yeme | ke SU / [nasal prefix] OB / nna |
| (I) am | (me) ndji | ke |
| If | a panga PST / ndi ku FUT | fa |
| In | moku | moni |
| (I) know | (ndi) yizire | (ke) itse |
| Last | kamana | bofelo |
| (I) like | (ndi) siine | (ke) rata |
| Little | _cene | _nnye |
| (I) love | (ndi) siine | (ke) rata |
| (I) make | (nda) rasi | (ke) dira |
| Many | _ _ndji | _ _ntsi |
| One | _chiki | _ngwe |
| More | _ _ndji | _ _ntsi |
| Most | _ _ndji | _ _ntsi |
| Much | nanyina | thata |
| My | _anga | _ame |
| New | _piya | _ntsha |
| No | iyemwa / ixa INT | nyaa |
| Not | muqhu ku SG / waqhu ku PL | ga se ...e |
| Now | namushi | jaanong |
| Of | _a | _a ga |
| Often | rusuku ni rusuku | nako tsotlhe |
| On | popu | fa |
| One | _chiki | _ngwe |
| Only | ngaho | fela |
| Or | panga | kana |
| Other | _ _mwe | _ _ngwe |
| Our | _etu | _a (ga) rona |
| Out | kuundje | kwantle |
| Over | popu ldiiru | fa godimo |
| People | umutu SG / awatu PL | motho SG / batho PL |
| Place | mupiri | lefelo |
| Please | Nda kambiiri. | Tlhe. / Tswee tswee. INT |
| Same | fwana | tshwana |
| (I) see | (nda) mono / (ndati) mwana | (ke) bona / (ke) bone |
| She | (same as He) | (same as He) |
| So | ku dzwa po | gonne |
| Some | _ _mwe | _ _ngwe |
| Sometimes | apamwe | nako nngwe |
| Still | ku _ na | go na le _ |
| Such | _ _mwe | _ _ngwe |
| (I) tell | (ndati) ziira / (nda) ziiri | (ke) bolela |
| That | _inaa | _le |
| The | --- | --- |
| Their | _awo | _ bone |
| Them | wowo | bone |
| Then | ta | tswa |
| There is | pana | go na le |
| They | wa | ba |
| Thing | itjutu SG / izutu PL | selo SG / dilo PL |
| (I) think | (nda) yanakana | (ke) gopola |
| This | _inii | _no |
| Time | rusuku | nako |
| To | ku | ko |
| Under | (ko) kooshi | (kwa) tlase |
| Up | ldiiru | godimo |
| Us | yetshwe / ti OB | rona |
| (I) use | (nda) rasikawo | (ke) direla / dirisa / dirile |
| Very | nanyina | thata |
| We | ta SU | re |
| What | shikya | eng |
| When | i ngini | leng |
| Where | (i) kure | kae |
| Which | _ire | _fe |
| Who | (i) yani | mang |
| Why | shikya | jang |
| With | ni | le |
| Yes | ii | ee |
| You | u SU / ma SU / ku OB / yewe | o SU / go OB / wena |
| Your | _we | _a gago |
Abbreviations:
SG - singular
PL - plural
SU - subject
OB - object
INT - intensified
What remains now is to rearrange these so that they are not organized by English alphabetization but by word category.
