#polysynthetic

Polysynthetic toki pona, where words are built on long strings of fundamental concepts as individual morphemes.

Ik ik it's crazy but like, maybe I could make it work.

As discussed before, Greenlandic has some long words. I came across an even longer example, at 35 letters this time:

oqaloqatigiissutigilluarumaarparput

Which can be broken down as follows:

oqaluppoq - to speak; stem oqalu*-

-qat - a fellow, someone you do something together with  from which comes the suffix -qatigiipput they (do verb) together and oqaloqatigiipput they have a conversation

-ssut - a cause or means of doing (verb)

-gi- - to have it as one’s (noun)

-lluar- - good, well

-rumaar- - will (at some point)

-parput - we (verb) it (first person plural, indicative transitive form with singular object)

Which can be translated literally as “We will at some point have that as a good cause of our speaking together” or more naturally as “We’ll have a good talk about that some other time” or even more succinctly (as translated by Fortescue) “We’ll go into that some other time”.

Source: Nutaraq (The Kid), by Hans Hendrik, which forms part of pieces of Greenlandic literature extracted and translated into English by Michael Fortescue in his very good collection “From the Writings of the Greenlanders / Kalaallit Atuakkiaannit”.

polysynthetic languages:

I solating

F usional

A gglutinative

Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language. A single word in Greenlandic can be equivalent to a fairly complicated sentence in English. I came across the following nice example (at 34 letters long):

Nalaasaarusuummerujussuaraluarpunga

nalaasaa- lie down and rest

-rusu- want

-ummer- suddenly

-rujussuar- very much

-raluar- otherwise, but…

-punga I (do verb), indicative mood

The problem with trying to pin down exactly how many Eskimo words there for snow and/or ice — or for anything, for that matter — is that Eskimo is what’s called a “polysynthetic” language, which means you sort of make up words as you go along, by connecting various particles to your basic root word. For example, we may add the suffix -tluk, bad, to kaniktshaq, snow, and come up with kaniktshartluk, bad snow.

By means of this system we may manufacture words that would fracture the jaw of an elk. To illustrate I offer the word takusariartorumagaluarnerpa, a chewy mouthful signifying: “Do you think he really intends to go look after it?” It takes nerve to flog your way through a word of this magnitude. That’s why Eskimos are so laconic — they’re conserving their strength for their next foray into their godawful grammar.