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I know the Tutelo word for Thank you is “Pilahuc” but aren’t there a number of variations of it? Like, I thank you, we thank you. we thank all of you, etc? How do you decline it?
Hmmmm…… this is a tough one.
Well, Pilahuc isn’t a verb, and the only examples translate as “thank you’. It comes from the word bii – ‘good’, and I’m assuming huc means ‘all’, so it appears to mean something like ‘it is all good’. Biiwa can also mean thank you, but it literally means ‘he, she, or it is good’, and seems to be a more informal version of pilahuc. You could try biiláhug idáañ, ‘big thank you’. But I’m not sure how you would say ‘I thank you’,’ we thank you all’, etc, that seems to be more of a western way of putting it.
In other native languages I’m familiar with, thank you also translates as ‘it is good’, or ‘my heart is good’, some languages don’t even have a word for thank you, they just say ‘I am happy’. You could also say ‘my heart is good that you have spoken to me’, or to emphasize your thankfulness, you could try ‘thank you, you all have caused our heart to become good, now we are very happy, thank you’. If you want something like that let me know and I can try and translate it for you.
Do you know how thanks is doled out in Lakota? I haven’t been able to find anything in the Biloxi and Ofo stuff that I have.
Lakota for thank you is Pilamaye ye/yelo. Okay, so there’s only two variations. If a female says thank you, it’s “Pilamaya ye.” If a male says thanks it’s “Pilamaya yelo.”
Does Tutelo grammar do anything like that contingent on the gender of the speaker?
The only thing I can find in Tutelo that is gender based is the assertive suffix, it adds emphasis to what you’re saying. -Se can be used by both men and women. -la only by men. There’s no example of the assertive being used with thank you in Tutelo, but since its used in Lakota, why not!
Women can say biiláhug se
Men can say biiláhug se or billáhug sela for even more emphasis. I guess ladies have to be more dainty than the guys.
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