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Lesson 47: I know that you are playing, it is good that you are playing

This post is based on Practical Marshallese by Peter Rudiak-Gould, a freely distributed, full-length textbook for learning the native language of the Marshall Islands. It has been used since 2004 as the official language manual for all volunteers in the WorldTeach Marshall Islands program, and it has formed the basis of language classes for Americans at Kwajalein Atoll. The 102 short lessons describe the grammar of the language in practical and familiar terms, and a glossary presents 1500 useful words.

The word for ‘that’ in Marshallese, as in the sentence ‘I know that you are fishing’ is ‘ke’ or ‘bwe.’  Make sure not to confuse this ‘ke’ from the one that is used to make yes-no questions, and also don’t confuse this ‘bwe’ from the one that means ‘so that’ and the one that means ‘because.’

– After some verbs, you can only use ‘ke’ for ‘that.’  Here are some of those verbs:

jeḷā ‘know’
jaje ‘don’t know’
ñak ‘don’t know’
lo ‘see’
kalliṃur ‘promise’
ḷōmṇak ‘think’
kile ‘realize’

For example:

Ijeḷā ke kwōj iukkure       =
(not Ijeḷā bwe kwōj iukkure)		 I-know/that/you-PRES/play = I know that you are playing
Raar lo ke iaar iukkure   =
(not Raar lo bwe iaar iukkure)		 they-PAST/see/that/I-PAST/play = They saw that I was playing

– After some verbs, you can only use ‘bwe’ for ‘that’  Here are some of them:

kōjatdikdik ‘hope’
keememej ‘remember’
tōmak ‘believe’

For example:

Ij kōjatdikdik bwe kwōṃōṇōṇō =    
(not Ij kejatdikdik ke kwōṃōṇōṇō)		 I-PRES/hope/that/you-happy = I hope that you are happy
Rej keememej bwe inañinmej  =
(not Rej keememej ke inañinmej)		 they-PRES/remember/that/I-sick = They remember that I am sick

– After ‘ba’ (‘say’), you can use either ‘ke’ or ‘bwe’:

Kwaar ba bwe kwōnaaj itok   = or Kwaar ba ke kwōnaaj itok you-PAST/say/that/you-FUTURE/come = You said that you will come

– If you want to say it ‘it is good that…’ or ‘it is bad that…’ do not say ‘eṃṃan ke…’ or ‘eṃṃan bwe…’  Instead use the words for ‘my,’ ‘your,’ etc., as in the following:

Eṃṃan aṃ itok         = it-good/your/come = It is good that you came
Enana aer nañinmej  = it-bad/their/sick = It is bad that they are sick

Vocabulary

pāāk (from English) bag
tariṇae to fight a war, to fight in a war
leen wōjke fruit
pejtōbōḷ (from English) vegetable
uṃṃa kiss
unin reason, reason of, cause, cause of
kanōk to pull
āinwōt ___ it seems that ___ Ex. Āinwōt inañinmej = It seems that I’m sick/I feel sick Ex. Āinwōt ejjeḷọk ek = It seems that there are no fish/There seem to be no fish
alikkar ____ it must be the case that ___, obviously ___ Ex. Alikkar enaaj wōt = Obviously it’s going to rain Ex. Alikkar eḷap aṃ jāān = You obviously have a lot of money/You must have a lot of money
kaal (from English) call on the radio, call on the telephone

Pronunciation Practice – ‘b’

In the last three Pronunciation Practices you learned that Marshallese ‘t,’ ‘p,’ and ‘k’ sound like English ‘d,’ ‘b,’ and ‘g’ when they are between two vowels.  There is another letter that does a similar thing: Marshallese ‘b.’  Listen to the word ‘bōb.’  The first ‘b’ sounds like an English ‘b,’ but the second one sounds like English ‘p.’  Now listen to the word ‘babbūb.’  The first ‘b’ sounds like English ‘b,’ but the double ‘b’ in the middle and the ‘b’ at the end sound like English ‘p.’  Thus, Marshallese ‘b’ normally sounds like English ‘b,’ but at the end of a word, or when there are two b’s in a row, it sounds like English ‘p.’

Practice with these words:

Sounds like English ‘b’   Sounds like English ‘p’  
bōb ‘pandanus’ bōb ‘pandanus’
babbūb ‘butterfly’ babbūb ‘butterfly’
ba ‘say’ jaab ‘no’
bōk ‘take’ jab ‘not’
aebōj ‘drinking water’ libbukwe ‘shell’
jerbal ‘work’ jibboñ ‘morning’

Practical Marshallese

Marco Mora-Huizar

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