uo'aXy'an Lesson Five: Politeness, Verbs, and Pronouns

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   [Music] hi this is Britain again in this chapter we're going to dive into politeness in Shian mainly as it relates to verbs and pronouns the Shion may come across as quite reserved at first encounter but this is not an attitude that they hold exclusively towards or against humans they treat each other in the same way out of their sense of propriety or what they call yinga the Shian are united in a vast Empire but they are historically a tribal people still to this day they cling to their family traditions and the fact that the families are constantly Vine for competitive advantages within

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   the society means that they are very careful about what they say and how they say it as you begin to engage with them it's critical for you to learn to be appropriately polite more than any other mechanism in the language verbs dictate their poetes you've learned in previous lessons that there are only nine verbs in the language and we know that some of them bind with tie to EXP exp and their expressiveness let's learn the rest beyond the first four you already know to indicates creation of something or causing something to happen s shows a need for something and can indicate cost or time required to do something TW

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   refers to desire to have or to do something sh indicates striving to accomplish something te indicates that something is pleasing let's examine some examples to withan W invents new types of vehicles W needs some food I want to go with yah La just tried to kill w ten arasu and no I like the aroma and taste of freshly deceased meat you learned the meaning of te back a few lessons ago

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   with its sense of being pleased or glad it requires the relational particle n which means toward or for to clarify who is pleased by what we just looked at n in the last lesson near the end there are only nine verbs however and this is is a big however they all come in six flavors and these flavors determine propriety and reverence the levels of politeness essentially descend from Imperial down to pejorative here are some fast and firm recommendations for anyone at a beginning level of learning Shion stick with the neutral polite or reverential verb forms take great care

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   when talking about the emperor don't use familiar or pejorative forms you just can't do it yet without causing problems for yourself be very careful with lative forms because you do not want to accidentally praise or honor yourself all of the forms that you have learned up to this point in these lessons are neutral polite forms they are almost always safe for everyday use with the Shion in public it is also relatively safe for you to use reverential forms because they simply mean that you are trying to be humble towards whomever is listening to your talk however if you overuse them you may come across as sounding like an insincere

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   sycophant guilty of neing which is often translated as artifice the Shion detest this with people who are essentially strangers to you just be polite not overly reverential the exception is if you are speaking with a Shan Elder and you are aware of their age and status in society let's learn the reverential forms they are simply the verbs that you know already at a low pitch with long vowels l l t t e e o o to to te

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   te even in neutral polite to is already at a low pitch so you just need to lengthen the vowel T has a long vowel in its normal polite form so in reverential the change to the low pitch is somewhat subtle you may hear others speaking to their children in the familiar or some Rough and Tumble gangster type speaking to each other in the pejorative so there is nothing wrong with memorizing the forms and recognizing them when you hear them but please don't use them yet it is safe for you to use the lative form y instead of te when you are trying to convey that you genuinely like something especially if it is not something that belongs to you I really like your new vehicle but

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   for now please stay away from the rest of the lative forms you should learn the Imperial forms for the sake of listening to news about the emperor it is not possible to speak properly about the emperor without these forms we're about to learn about pronouns in the language but there are no pronouns for the Emperor or historical empresses because what would be Imperial pronouns are essentially built into the verbs y the emperor is a beneficent person Ying he is the Emperor the emperor is patient Emperor C arrived today

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   the emperor has instituted new laws the emperor now has need of a doctor the emperor wants to go to Kawa the emperor tried to affect Universal peace Sushi the emperor adors sushi in the example about the emperor arriving the raw personal name Cay is used but that's only okay because the verb calls out the fact that he is the Emperor you must always include his title when speaking about him in either English or even if you're asking in Shion have you ever met Emperor

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    C now let's also talk about the role that pronouns play in poetes and propriety first we'll just go through the standard table of neutral polite pronouns on the left of this table Noah I Yang we without you we including you Le you SE yallan she he San they it Kum they the first thing we notice is that there are two different forms for we we is actually somewhat problematic in English because it doesn't clarify precisely whom it refers to in Shion this ambiguity does not exist Yang refers to multiple people on

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    one side excluding The Listener or listeners U indicates everyone however on the flip side in everyday polite speech the Shan don't make any distinction between she and he this is likely due to the fact that everyone goes into Imperial Service as a young adult flan is used for both males and females if there is confusion and it must be clarified you can quickly ask meaning she or he it is considered sexist to overtly make this distinction constantly in everyday speech you will get used to using Thon for both females and males you should also be careful not to call

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    animals C or Kum anything that is clearly alive and moves about gets called and Shian it can be tricky with plants but just mimic what the Shian are doing vis a KU and Kum as best you can when discussing Flora Shan is prodrop which means that the pronouns are often omitted when the context is clear we also do this in English in very casual contexts you might respond we'll be there at 8:30 or so if asked in a text message when you're showing up somewhere anyone would understand that you've dropped the pronoun I Shian does this constantly however when speaking very carefully or formally as you likely would in most cases with reverential pronouns they

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    don't drop as often let's go through the right hand side the reverential side of the tablea when SW wuu laam comparing left and right you'll notice that in more proper speech the she he distinction is always made she when he Wu they female SW they male suu when plural groups are mixed it's safe to just use swen this is due in part to the fact that Shian Society is

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    matriarchal women hold more power and demand more respect in general than men do especially in any traditional context it is somewhat of an historical fluke that the current ruler of the Empire is male the only real danger with using reverential pronouns is is overusing them just like with reverential verb forms you can come across as a sycophant be careful to use LA and Lam when referring to important cultural artifacts or the prized possessions of prominent people or their clothing Etc you should take care with this even if you are speaking in an otherwise neutral polite verbal style finally the pitch on the second syllable of reverential we

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    forms and is especially high in very formal speech to really know how to be carefully expressive with verbs we need to discuss the vcps the verb clarifying particles because not only do they clarify aspect in a temporal sense but they also affect the mood around permission and assuredness first let's just look at the time Focus related VC PS PA Chi and a PA refers to completion or past Chi indicates a current temporal Focus so now compared to previously or about to happen compared to right now ah highlights ongoing incomplete

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    action here are some examples o we are all going together you're included oppa we all went together without you she or he is about to go now or it's on the way to Kawa like Li and na which are also technically vcps all the other typically come right after the most important verbal part of the verb complex when the verb is bound to another tie you would be understood if you were to say OA or oi but those sound like mistakes that Shian children would make now that we're

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    clear on where the vcps come in in the flow of speech let's look at which vcps have more impact on speaking politely in English using May to ask permission is fading in many dialects it's often simply conflated with can can I sit here versus may I sit here here the Shion don't conflate these two ya refers to Ability song demonstrates permission I can fly a choir choir may I test pilot The Choir O yes you may it's important not to confuse the English word may when used for

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    permission with the sense of might be the Shan very distinctly separate permission s from potential sa it may be a type of vanu transmission you might go to Kawa stacking vcps is also possible in some context o ya you might be able to go to Kawa or you might be allowed to go to Kawa might I be allowed to go make sure to ask for things politely that does it for this chapter you'll find much more detail on all the

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    vcps and other hints about Shan propriety in the resource documents on the RSI forum for Shan Learners go ask your questions and get them answered study well