These are the words of an old Eagle Song or Honoring Song:

 

Neito’eino’, heetce’noohowunee. Heetniini’oohowunee.

My relatives, you will see me again. you will see me in a good way.

Neito’ei-no’	Heet-ce’-noohow-unee	Heet-nii-ni’-oohow-unee
My relative-PL	FUT-again-see-you/me	FUT-IMPERF-good-see-you/me

 

This song includes the TA verb noohow-, meaning ‘see someone.' It uses a new type of ending we haven’t seen yet: the ending for ‘you (PL)’ doing something to ‘me.’ In this chapter, now that you know how to say ‘I’m doing something,’ and ‘we’re doing something,’ we are going to learn how to say ‘you’re doing something’ to someone. For example, if you want to say, ‘stop, you’re bothering me!’, you would say:

 

Ciintoo! Cenoo’uh-ún!

 

The verb coo’uh- means ‘to bother someone.’ The final -n indicates ‘you.’ The -u- before the end indicates that the second person (you) is acting on the first person (me). Here are some other examples:

 

nonoohob-é3en	I see you.
nonoohow-ún	You see me.
too’ob-é3en	I hit you.
too’ow-ún	You hit me.
conoo’uh-é3en	I’m annoying you.
conoo’uh-ún	You’re annoying me.
neniiteheib-é3en	I’m helping you.
neniiteheib-ín	You’re helping me.

 

Right away, you will notice a couple of peculiarities. First, the ending can be either -ún or -ín. Whenever there’s an -ob at the end of a verb, the verb changes to -ow and the ending is -un. Whenever there’s a -uh, -ún is used as well. In the other cases, -ín is used:

 

benii3woon-ín	You’re cooking for me.
henei’towuun-in	You’re telling me something.
beniin-ín bei’ci3ei’i	You’re giving me money.
neni’itowuun-ín woxhoox	You’re asking me for a horse.

 

 

Go on to Part Two of this Lesson