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Wednesday, 19 June 2019

Nuts and Bolts: Archi.

Archi is a language spoken in the village of Archib, in Southern Dagestan, in Russia.

It's spoken in the smaller villages surrounding Archib, too.

It's a wonderful, rather horrifying thing, is the language Archi. Have you ever struggled to learn verbs in another language? To sort out the difference between catch and caught, between bin and ist, between vouloir and voudrais?

Well, an Archi verb has (mathematically, at least) 1,502,839 possible forms.

Yes, I feel faint, too.

Archi nouns are simpler, but still very far from simple. They come in ten cases (including the simulative*) - and that's without counting the five spatial cases (inessive, intrative, superessive, subessive and pertigent, which give the meanings in, between, above, below and against, respectively).

Yes, the language of Archi is a wonderful thing, and if I ever went to Archib I would learn some phrases as a courtesy to the inhabitants.

In fact, I'll learn one now, just in case.

Dogi ebku.

It means the donkey fell.

I suppose that's about as likely as needing to communicate something about the pen of my aunt, isn't it?

Word To Use Today: any irregular verb in your native language - and be grateful you can do it!

*No idea: sorry!





















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