Although most entries are labeled for Part of Speech (noun, verb, etc.), it is still important that you are able to determine it on your own, which you can do by the word's English translation. Keep in mind that most Kumeyaay words are verbs, and almost all Kumeyaay verbs can become nouns, even without modification, in the right context. Kumeyaay verbs do not have an infinitive form (e.g. to do, to be, to make), so the standard dictionary entry is the third-person singular and is translated as such (does, is, makes). Kumeyaay also does not have adjectives as a word class, but uses verbs to fill the role served by adjectives in English.
Use the following examples to help determine part of speech:
Kumeyaay word and translation: 'aashaa kwilaaw, "mockingbird"
Part of speech: Since "mockingbird" cannot be a verb in English, this word is a noun.
Kumeyaay word and translation: chemaa, "tastes"
Part of speech: The English word "tastes" does not make sense as a noun, except in certain contexts, and the entry does not have notes stating that the word is a plural. Rather, it looks like the third-person singular form (he/she/it) of the verb "to taste", which is how Kumeyaay verb translations are usually written. Thus, this word is a verb.
(Note that the true translation of "chemaa" is "he/she/it tastes (it)" or "he/she/it tasted (it)")
Kumeyaay word and translation: 'all, "wide"
Part of speech: The English word "wide" does not make sense as a noun or a verb, but appears to be an adjective. We know that Kumeyaay does not have adjectives, but that all adjectives in Kumeyaay are verbs. Therefore, the word 'all is a verb meaning "is wide" (we leave off the "is" in the translation section).
Verbs and nouns in this dictionary are in the singular form unless otherwise specified. Plural verbs will be translated as "they ___", and plurals will have a note saying, "plural of...(singular word)"
Most Kumeyaay nouns are the same whether singular or plural, with a few exceptions, which mainly include words for people.
Most Kumeyaay verbs have a plural form, which usually cannot be predicted based on the singular form. If audio is available, plural verb forms will be given a separate entry.
The plural form may also be written in the "plural form" section of a word entry, though we will only do this if there is a plural form available in the dialect of the speaker. Some dialects have plurals for words while others do not. Some verbs do not have a plural form at all, though the absence of a plural form in this dictionary does not necessarily mean the verb does not have a plural!
Whenever possible, verbs are cited in the entry notes with the plural form in parentheses: singular form (plural form), as is the convention in the Mesa Grande dictionary. Almost all plurals seen here will come from Mesa Grande, which had the most thorough documentation of plural forms.
Kumeyaay words for body parts and family members have mandatory possession: the word must always indicate who it belongs to, whether it is mine, yours, his/her, their, etc. You cannot say "the father" or "a father" in Kumeyaay, it is either "my father", "your father", or "his/her father". Possession is marked by prefixes, as shown below:
'Etaly "My mother"
Metaly "Your mother"
Paataly "His/her mother" <- citation form
'Esally "My hand/arm"
Mesally "Your hand/arm"
Esally "His/her hand/arm" <- citation form
The citation form (the form of the word that gets listed in the dictionary) for these words is generally the third-person "his/her/its" form. For most body parts, the "his/her" form is the bare form, while for kinship terms it may begin with paa- or pa-.
When you see a word like aq listed in the dictionary, it may be translated as "his bone", or rather simply as "bone". Either way, knowing that this is a body part, it is up to you to understand that the word actually means "his/her/its bone".
In most cases, a body part or kinship term can be owned by either gender: hellytaa may be "his hair" or "her hair". If a term like emily happens to be translated as "his foot", it does not necessarily mean that the foot must belong to a man. Rather, it was translated this way to show that it is a possessed form, and "his" simply stands in for "his/her/its" and in most cases, also "their".
Some terms, however, can only be possessed by either a man or a woman. For example, pechaay can only mean "his daughter", referring specifically to the daughter of a man. A woman's son or daughter would be called hekwany. In such instances, the entry notes will indicate if the word can only be possessed by a certain gender.
For more information on grammar, visit learniipayaa.weebly.com
For an explanation of the orthography, read The Kumeyaay Alphabet
The following text sources are also useful:
Basic definitions of some grammatical terms you may encounter in this dictionary: