Wenja Language: nati

Kwayubi, Winja!  Hay shayar Reofive “nati” warshtas pracha.  Sa hu-tangay: ku nasa-ha banda?  Na sa, ma dwa kam-kamya warshta-ha daha: na ati-kwa. 

What’s up, Wenja!  This morning Reofive asked about the word nati.  He wondered: is it connected with nasa “return home”?  It’s not but it’s made with two very common words: na “not” and ati “still, more, longer.”

When do you hear nati?  Well, if you’re like me — all the time.  I personally always dismiss my beast before taking an outpost, to do it as stealthily as possible.  When you dismiss your beast you’ll hear Takkar say either *grunt* Su. or Nati! The former is something we’ve talked about before: su means “good” (a grunt’s a grunt).  The latter means something like “no longer!”  or “no more!”

The words na “not” and ati “still” don’t have to be combined like that. Take the following sentence: Na wajra-ha ati wanam. “I no longer hunt with clubs.” Na, a sentence starter, has to be at the beginning, but ati, going with wana is placed immediately before the verb.

Both words are from good PIE stock.  The first, *né ‘not’ is the source of Sanskrit ná, Latin ne, and the initial n- in English no & not.  Believe it or not (har), it’s also indirectly the source of the prefixes un- as in unbelievable (Germanic), in- as in inescapable (Latin), and a- as in asocial (Greek). The second is from PIE *éti ‘still’, which (while no longer continued as anything in English per se), becomes the word for “and” in Latin (et) and Armenian (ev) and means “still, too, beyond” in Sanskrit (áti).