The language where EVERYTHING can be a verb

Have you ever spoke a language and wondered if everything could be a verb? Well, the aztecs have you covered with Nahuatl!
#language #languages #verbs #linguistics

[@LingoLizard]

Corrections/Notes: At 1:31 “доктор” (doktor) should be “доктором” (doktorom) in both sentences. A lot of people have been commenting pointing out that words in most languages can be turned into verbs (verbalization). While this is very much true, this is only derivational (used to make new words out of pre-existing ones), and this video focuses on nonverbial person agreement in Nahuatl and Turkish, rather than on verbalization.

[@user-tk2jy8xr8b]

Technically "я был(а) доктор" is valid (it's somewhat like "I was the doctor"), but you won't meet this form very often

[@jonasarnesen6825]

Ainu can be pretty wird. According to an online dictionary (Saru dialect) there is a verb to be the younger sister of someone "イマタｸネ". According to this logic and many verbs having the ending ネ like クンネ (which comes from クﾙ (shadow) and ネ (to be)) which means to be black you can put ネ on every word to make it a verb to make an infinate number of verbs (in the form of to be, there are also others like キ for to do). ...so this would be possible. クトゥセタコﾛクﾙネ。 I-two-dogs-having-person-am. I am a person who has two dogs. Or... トゥ セタ クコﾛ。 Two dogs I-have. I have two dogs. Switching between both or even more makes my brain as if I'd try coding with Brainf*ck. And the good part is it gives me confidence. クトゥセタコﾛクﾙネ。 So... this can be said as... クトゥセタコﾛクﾙネ。 トゥセタコﾛクﾙ クネ。 クトゥセタコﾛ。 トゥ セタ クコﾛ。 クトゥセタコﾛペネ。 トゥセタコﾛペ クネ。 With numbers like アシｸネ (seven) it get's weirder. クアシｸネセタコﾛクﾙネ。 カシｸネセタコﾛクﾙネ。 クアシｸネセタコﾛ。 カシｸネセタコﾛ。 クアシｸネセタコﾛペネ。 カシｸネセタコﾛペネ。 Why?!

[@aphrog649]

@@user-tk2jy8xr8b why would доктором make more sense in this context? i’m learning russian, so i’m curious 😅 isn’t доктором instrumental case?

[@user-tk2jy8xr8b]

@@aphrog649 it is the instrumental case form indeed. Usually it's enought to place a who/what question word along the verb to learn about the case: был кем/был чем. Same for будет (will be), является, работает (works as) and others, a lot of words with "playing a role of"/"is" semantics, although "есть" (am/is/are) itself takes nominative case. It's just something to learn and to remember

[@josephmclaughlin9865]

@@aphrog649 Check out the movie Moscow on the Hudson, where Robin Williams says about someone who died, "Он был комиком." He did an amazing job pronouncing Russian, without speaking Russian. Old movie, like 1983-84.

[@thegoldendragonacs]

So, essentially, Nahuatl is just a language where they min-maxed their verb stat, so that way they could always be doing. *The key for the most productive society has been before us this whole time.*

[@murimurimrui]

It was THE meta build before the europeans came in and wretch their build with their giga chad new build

[@familiamarquez3219]

fun fact: in my country (Nicaragua) there are still words used in the nahuatl language that are still used today

[@falliblefalinks7239]

“Wait, it’s all verbs?” “Always has been.”

[@TennoSkoom]

Shows a picture of an astronaut pointing a blowgun at another astronaut

[@j.s.ospina9861]

Come to think of it, "it's morbin time" and "im going ghost" are also examples of phrases where normal words are used as verbs

[@tcoren1]

Was gonna ask if this grammar can also be applied to proper nouns like morbius

[@twincaves1747]

Or gaming Or googling Etc. English is weird lol

[@randomboi1609]

Are you saying that verbs are not normal words?

[@AMC08]

Or when you grandma uses new terms as verbs

[@win_ini]

@@randomboi1609 yes.

[@mrrandom1265]

In Vietnamese there's no verb "to be" most of the time. They say "I hungry". They get confused when they speak English and they sometimes can't make the difference between a verb and and adjective. They might ask you "Do you hungry?" or "Are you need help?".

[@abarette_]

In French it'd be "I have hungry, Have you hungry (or Is-it-that you have hungry), Have you need of help (or Is-it-that you have need of help" fun stuff, especially because somehow the shorter form is the more formal form

[@canpirtici7658]

Ahaha As a Turkish native speaker, at the very beginning of the video I was considering where is the interesting part for not having a copula until the part you gave example in Turkish. It made me realise that how a human logic evolved through linguistics even you don’t think that not having a copula could be interesting phenomena for other languages’ speakers ;)

[@reconscout2238]

There is copula in turkish dır-dir suffix is that

[@canpirtici7658]

@@reconscout2238 It’s “declarative suffix” not exact copula in the sense of generally accepted copula.

[@gwynbleidd_doethbleidd]

Of course there are copulæ: all tense/mood conjugations of imek except for the aorist idir, and olmak as in "babam doktordu" (idi being one) and "çikolata tatlı olur" (olmak being another).

[@shahsuvar]

@@reconscout2238 In simple present it is only used for generalization or sometimes just for guessing. Actually it means that you are not speaking about a fact but about an information.

[@reconscout2238]

@@shahsuvar Are you talking about mıi-miş suffix ?

[@aaliyahwood8097]

Boy I sure do love thinking I'm smart for inventing a new grammatical concept in a conlang only to realise it already exists in multiple natural languages

[@polastarr]

It seems that the most popular belief is that the word for "chocolate" is "xocolatl", made of "xococ" and "atl" which mean "sour" and "water" respectively. It was originally used to define an Aztec cocoa beverage. However, there is indeed a debate, some believe the original word to be "chocolatl" which roughly translates to "brown drink" and some others think that when Spanish was being introduced to the region, people mistakenly read "chocoatl" as "chocolat", misplacing the "L" in the middle of the word. Apparently there's quite a discussion surrounding the etymology of the word and plenty of theories on how it got to what it is today.

[@AD-mq1qj]

Xococ means sour, not bitter

[@NetoKruzer]

I just imagine myself speaking Nahualt if the Aztecs still ruled... Yes people, some areas of Mexico still speak Nahualt and other "Pre-Hispanic" languajes...

[@Molito-hm7yf]

but they speak it differently with a heavy spanish influence

[@LinguaPhiliax]

This nonverbial personal agreement is pretty common for any American language, not just Nahuatl. Don't get me wrong, it's still interesting as hell! But it's not just Nahuatl that does this.

[@thegrassguy2871]

Yeah, doesn't Navajo also do that?

[@beedle556]

and all the mayan languages

[@osasunaitor]

My dad always complains that in Far West movies, Native Americans just say a couple of words and it gets translated as a whole complex sentence. He says it can't be real and I always agreed... until now. Seeing that "titlamatini" means "you are a wise person" in Nahuatl, I can assume why those movie Natives would only need a handful of words to pronounce their speeches against the cowboys lol.

[@Panambipyhare]

Yeah, I am a speaker of Guarani, and I confirm that the verbal system of this is very similar to Nahuatl, although these are of different language families

[@graf]

polish kind of does a similar thing with adjectives. it's fallen out of use nowadays, but: for context: jest - is jestem - (I) am jesteś - (you) are głodny - hungry głodnyś - you're hungry (rare) głodnym - I'm hungry (rarer) we also use "this" instead of is like a copula sometimes. Adam to student. (literally "Adam this student")

[@Pining_for_the_fjords]

Interesting. I'm a student of the Polish language and I've never heard of adjectives taking verb endings. However I've seen question adverbs taking them in some older texts, for example "gdzieś ty był?" instead of "gdzie ty byłeś?"

[@Skemmm]

Since I'm not polish I won't be able to contribute to the discourse, so I'm just marking this fact

[@finmonster5827]

чешч ґраф, длачеґо оґлондаш такє нудне відЕо?

[@ipoop4timesaday]

Could it be that this is a highly archaic and sophisticated property of the language? Because when I search the words up, it returns some old religious texts instead of examples from everyday language.

[@korana6308]

@@ipoop4timesaday I am not Polish, I am Russian, but since our languages are related, I completely got the first part (same in Russian) , but pretty sure he made mistakes with the second part. Since you do change words endings depending on the subject in a sentence (same in Russian) , but I think he got those examples wrong... Let's try those examples in Russian: golod = a hunger ( the root word that doesn't change, and then you add prefixes, suffixes and endings to change the word). golodnij = hungry (he / it) golodnij? = are you hungry. golodnij! = (I/ he / it) is hungry. golodnaya = same thing but for I/ she / it... Then is when I got a bit confused, and I think he was wrong... or may be I didn't get something? Perhaps he meant golodnish? which is a very weird word for it... But I will give you a few examples in Russian anyway... Golodaesh? - Are you hungry? Golodaesh - You are hungry. Golodai - (you) Be hungry Golodaem? - Shall we be hungry? Golodaem - We will go hungry! Goloduha - (deliberate or "as of deliberate") hunger. As well as other examples: Golodalshik Golodun Golodatel' Golodashka proGolod zaGolodat' naGolodat' and a few hundreds examples, depending on the subject and what you want to say the word can change in several hundred ways...

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Throughout the whole video I was like "OMG this is just like Turkish! OMG how could he have forgotten about Turkish!?" And then he mentioned Turkish and I have never been more satispointed. Yeah, go figure I was going make this whole comment a vehicle for invasive linguistics. Please welcome "satispointed" into your vocabulary ;) ps. and also say hi to "invasive linguistics" in your termbox. Yeah, that's a toolbox for terms. Say hello to that as well.

[@Marcotonio]

What a good finding! My conlang is still in its infancy, and whenever I try to come up with some rules, I always lean towards making a single "concept word" that can be used as ALL classes - verb, noun, adverb, adjective. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it became obvious to me that's how meaning works, we just separate its application based on whatever language we speak. I came up with a list of "essential" verbs for more abstract concepts (like being - with ser/estar distinction, like in Romance languages), but that can also probably be turned into an all-purpose concept word. The caveat is that patterns always emerge, I doubt every verb/noun pair (for instance) has an equal amount of utility in daily conversations, we might talk a lot about broccoli, but it will hardly ever be necessary as a verb. Maybe as an adjective/adverb, to describe clouds or a nuclear explosion. I'll have to take a deeper dive into Nahuatl and Turkish, now, thank you so much!

[@thealtrik3051]

Great video! I just have a small correction, at 1:31, when you wrote "я был(а) доктор" and "я буду доктор", the correct way of saying that would be "я был(а) доктором" and "я буду доктором" as you have to use the instrumental case.

[@thealtrik3051]

Btw if you want I could help you with Russian and Spanish translations for your next videos, I'm fluent in them both and would be pleased to give you a hand

[@LingoLizard]

Ack, thanks for catching that!

[@QuizmasterLaw]

Nominalization and Verbalization is possible in most languages. In German ANY noun may be a verb and vice verse. As well you can form compound nouns at will and as long as you wish. What do you Essen? You Essen das Essen. Add -en to a noun, it's a verb. Put a das in front of a verb and its a noun. String anything together and you've formed compound nouns. Funkstelleabsprechungsgeraet for example. So yeah, German has an infinite vocabulary. I'm sure other languages must do this too, just not so extremely as German does (in theory). In practice after about 30 letters people will restructure their sentence.

[@Ocklepod]

@@QuizmasterLaw I see you're good at german grammar, but there are some intuitive parts you missed. Funkstelle*n*absprechungsgerät has to include that n, and I personally would use Absprache instead of Absprechung in all cases, but I'm not entirely sure Absprechung is wrong. This would turn this into Funkstellenabsprachegerät. Also notice there's no "s" after Absprache but it's necessary to form the compound with Absprechung. Another note about "Essen", you chose a highly irregular verb so it would be "isst" in 2nd person singular -> "Was *isst* du? Du *isst* das Essen," = what do you eat? you eat the food. Actually most common words are irregular when turning into a verb or noun I just noticed. Here's another example. German adapts a similar vowel shift concept as english: fly flew flown = fliegen flog geflogen, and the noun Flug. it would also be possible to use Das Fliegen but it has a distinct use from Flug. turning verbs into nouns have more of a continous action with them. I would construct something in english with -ing form to translate das Fliegen, but Flug is just a flight, a simple regular noun.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

@@Ocklepod Bildschirm zu klein, Augen zu alt, Besserzuwisser

[@sabikikasuko6636]

There's also a verby system in Japanese! In Japanese, you have 2 classes of adjectives: -na adjectives, and -i adjectives. -i adjectives can be conjugated kind of like verbs, and they behave like "to be `adjective`". 高い (takai-expensive) 高くない (takakunai-isn't expensive) 高かった (takakatta-was expensive) 高くなかった (takakunakatta-wasn't expensive) Edit: how could I forget about suru verbs?! XD 為る in Japanese means to do, to become or to cause, and it's the ending form of a special class of verbs called -suru verbs. Suru verbs represent the large bulk of Japanese verbs, and they're basically nouns turned verbs 理解 (rikai - understanding, comprehension 理解する (rikaisuru - to understand 解決 (kaiketsu - solution, settlement) 解決する (Kaiketsusuru - to solve a problem) Now, you can't just turn ANY noun into a verb, -suru verbs are an actual verb class. Some like 愛する (aisuru, to love) even have irregular forms (Its potential form is 愛せる-aiseru, instead of 愛出来る-aidekiru).

[@abarette_]

stunning example of just how cool kanji are

[@ankushds7018]

True! Actually, I had no idea that 愛できる was not something that Japanese used. Although I'm not sure to what degree one has the freedom to change the grammar based on how natural it sounds? Like English speakers do it so frequently that many nouns have their verb forms made up. Like googling or tweeting. And historically well established verb tenses, for example -- "slew" changed to "slayed".... But I doubt the Japanese would be happy accepting a change that easily (?)..not enough to put it in their standard dictionaries at least.

[@lunarsoul1737]

So happy to finally see someone pronounce Nahuatl correctly after sitting through a history class that pronounced it like "Nah-hoo-ah-tal"

[@Thomas-oc2ln]

People tend to pronounce things in line with their native language. In American English, that would be the correct way to pronounce it. Saying taco and burrito in a Mexican accent doesn't make the words more accurate, nor does it make you more cultured for saying it that way. A Mexican saying English words in an American accent would look equally ridiculous. The 'tl' sound in that context is not native to English speakers. It will never catch on no matter how hard you try.

[@pandabear2559]

Keep up the amazing content I love languages and I found that your content is perfect keep up the good work

[@yesid17]

been binge watching your stuff and just subbed, great work, keep it up!

[@al1iii]

Loveeee your videos! Please keep on doing these. Hoping for audio quality to become better too

[@prodtheontar]

your content will blow up soon Keep up the good work

[@kekroneplay4014]

Another great video!

[@kingkoba5618]

I actually speak Nahuatl and from Veracruz. It is a really cool language.

[@zeezee9670]

In Arabic many nouns are litteraly used & conjugated as verbs, in a similiar way to English (like knife smb. or drum for war, though much more frequent in Arabic) like in the following translated examples: He lioned on all the team members (he treated them like a boss his minons) The ruler de-origined crime in the city (removed it surgically.. leaving no traces/origins) They hounded on her (attacked her in a large number) Needling is a old Chinese medicinal science. He nationed (led) them in prayer thus becoming their Imam (yes imam is derived from Ummah meaning nation itself derived from mother) The two countries brothered on their distrust of England.

[@tenarmie]

I was very confused about how this even worked until you said Turkish does the same thing. I'm native Turkish and never realised that this feature was so unique. I'm not sure how it works in Nahuatl but in Turkish, the suffix we add at the and of the noun is considered the conjugated form of the verb "to be". And since the conjugation differs for different subjects, we can get away with not using a subject at all. The end result is not exactly the noun becoming a verb, but the verb attaching to the noun, which makes a grammatically complete sentence even though it looks like one word only. Japanese and Korean are also similar to Turkish in this aspect. (It's not what you're talking about in the video since they don't include the subject) As in the verb "to be" attaching to the noun at the end instead of standing as a separate verb in the sentence. I'm not sure if it works the same way in Turkish and Nahuatl but I think I understand that the end result in both is nonverbal person agreement. Also very cool video I enjoyed watching it a lot :)

[@captainobvious8037]

I have one question. Why do so many people have profile pictures of.. idk, korean drama actors?

[@tenarmie]

@@captainobvious8037 he's not an actor but a musician. And for me it's because I emotionally feel very connected to him and relate to his lyrics a lot. Plus I enjoy his music a lot too. And I thought this photo looks cool and used it as a pp simply bc of that.

[@captainobvious8037]

@@tenarmie I see.

[@ChasMusic]

¡Interesting, thank you! In Cantonese, all adjectives are verbs, but nouns tend to use a different word than the corresponding verb.

[@Marjiance26]

Great video! Subscribing!

[@Jacob.D.]

Your video enjoyment, I heart it so much. I knowledge from it a lot

[@abarette_]

this is what english will be in 2014

[@kklein]

是 in Chinese isn't originally a copula either, though it's come to take on that use. I believe it meant more something like "this/that", and it is still omitted in a lot of contexts. I think it's slightly inaccurate to refer to it as the same kind of grammatical phenomenon as "to be" in English. In the Chinese context, there's a lot of discussion to be had around what even defines different word classes, since there's no inflection in the language. You make great videos btw, if you ever want to collab hmu :)

[@rvat2003]

Yes! We would love to see that collaboration!

[@LingoLizard]

I didn't think too much on using mandarin as an example to demonstrate other languages using the copula, I just choose chinese since it doesn't inflect like in a lot of other languages (though maybe vietnamese or japanese would've been better in that regard) I'd be honored to collaborate with you! :) (also sorry for taking so long to respond I got too overwhelmed by comments to check)

[@sweetpotato2235]

Just wanted to point out that while correct that 是（shi4) originated as more of a demonstrative pronoun, it has evolved to the point that it would be considered a copula used in Chinese. Using the example from the video, “我是醫生” which means “I am a doctor“, the “是” is acting as the equivalent of “am” and is absolutely necessary to the functioning of this expression. Omitted it would have an entirely different meaning of “My doctor”. So while not an exact equivalent of the english “to be”, in many cases it serves the same function such as in the case of connecting two nouns.

[@leohe2594]

@@sweetpotato2235 Well technically it's not quite a copula since you can well omit the 是 (it would stress the attribute) or you must not use it for adjective (or you will end up with another sense)

[@Panambipyhare]

It's a very curious thing. In contemporary Guaraní something similar happens (especially in Vulgar Guaraní), using the third-person pronoun "ha'e" as a copulative verb. For example: Che ha'e mba'apohára (I am (the) worker). Although the standard cultured version recommends: Che mba'apohára (I-worker)

[@hiusan6216]

A little correction on Indonesian, "adalah" isnt used as an emphasis, but is a "to be " particle. So, yeah, Indonesian does have a copula for subject-is-noun. But the zero copula situation in Indonesian is for "to be " and "to be " which English has. The copula ruling in Indonesian is similar to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

[@gustavovillegas5909]

Tlaskamati miak = Thank you very much in modern Huasteca Nahuatl, I’m a learner and this was a great video! In Classical Nahuatl it would be: Tlazohcamati miac

[@missbebop7941]

I watch your videos at 0.75 speed🙃, but nonethless they are satisfying to watch~

[@alizard3356]

Tlazokamati! I really love it when Native American cultures get recognized, specially when it is mine, so I might be biased.

[@wilh3lmmusic]

Ithkuil be like: Nouns, verbs, same thing!

[@official-obama]

in toki pona, everything is a verb by definition so, to red, is to be red and to person, is to be a person

[@abarette_]

That's mostly because with so few words, you can't be bothered to differenciate, toki pona also doesn't have (a classical form of) conjugation

[@EvGamerBETA]

What could be boring about the grammar? It's the most interesting part.

[@romeocivilino6667]

I wish you can also discuss something about my language, Filipino, the National Language of the Philippines, A Standardized Tagalog that was based in Manila Dialect.

[@LowestofheDead]

So in Nahuatl and Turkish, any noun can mean both and . That makes me wonder if those meanings are two different concepts that the speakers have the same word for... Or if I believe that these are different concepts as an English speaker and really they're the same..

[@abdullahmertozdemir9437]

It is basically the same concept for us. Let me explain: Turkish has copula for third person, it is just non-existent and since we use suffixes instead of prefixes you can leave the suffix part empty and it will mean the same thing. However, Turkish is a highly-contextual language. If you just say "doktor" and there is no contextual knowledge, you can't for sure say that the speaker meant "he/she is a doctor" and not just "doctor" Subject word for third person in Turkish is "o". If you say "O doktor" you know for sure that it means "He/she is a doctor". However, if you say "Doktor" it could mean either "He/she is a doctor" or "The doctor". If someone asks you "What is is job?" and you answer "doktor" that's fine because there is context

[@k.umquat8604]

Not exactly,because nouns and verbs receive different suffixes.

[@yoro33MV]

we dont think of a single word as a sentence unless theres context, it only turns into a sentence with context, without it its just a word

[@Mekelaina]

English can sort of do this if you think about it. Or at least you can say you are/are doing/ or to some (noun) and usually depending on memetic context people will get some jyst of what you're trying to convey.

[@davidkinnear1905]

Reminds me of Borges' tale of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. In which he described a fictive language with no nouns and were everything was a verb. The poor sod didn't know that it was kinda true.

[@satyakisil9711]

I believe chocolate in nahuatl is xocolatl

[@hosseinhaschemi2570]

Persian can be almost the same. You can do sentences with only verbs and they just make sense. You can also use verb endings for adjectives and that's all, it completely makes sense.

[@r0mashka23]

... hug, sleep, SEND HELP💀 It's literally me

[@KitsuneStories]

Neat. Algonquian languages seem to use verbs like this, too. Very verb-centric

[@LaloWar90]

Chocolate comes from xoco (bitter) and atl (water) it was originally a drink made of cacao, vainilla, chilies, honey and spices only afforded by the high class.

[@abarette_]

What's interesting to note is that, in english, a lot of verbs can be written and pronounced the same way as verbs, examples: to read/a read, to walk/a walk, to need/a need, to lead/a lead, to piece (together)/a piece It's not consistent nor is it all of them, though. For example one has to say 'a song' and not 'a sing', and 'a knowledge' and not 'a know'

[@dorkbark]

oh man my head hurts i love it

[@potigvaro]

In Esperanto, it also happens: persono (the finish -o means noun) = person personi (the finish -i means verb) = to be a person

[@soweli3033]

how do you say im an ugly person using that structure? mi personas malbele

[@potigvaro]

@@soweli3033 vi malbelas (the easier and vastly used version) vi malbelulas (the most precise one) vi malbelpersonas (the most chaotic-but-correct one) vi hidas (the most fancy and poetic one)

[@abarette_]

@@potigvaro can you develop what's the difference between malbelas and malbelulas? I should precise I have 0 knowledge of esperanto

[@juliatorre8803]

your right ear will love it

[@name-yn6vu]

Hungarian is somewhat like this. You can make ANY word a verb. Kutya = dog Kutyál = dogging(?) Kutyáz = dogging(?) (?) because it doesn't really have a proper english translation to explain what is meant Funnily enough we say things like "I am hungering". Our word for explanation is literally "Magyarázni" literally meaning 'hungarianing/hungarianifying"

[@maapauu4282]

What does it mean though?

[@name-yn6vu]

@@maapauu4282 it's just the verb form the word dog. So it's like if the word dog was an action. The two words are very subtly different in meaning because kutyál is doing something using the dog as a tool and kutyáz implies that the dog is what the doing is being done to.

[@maapauu4282]

@@name-yn6vu Oh, okay, thank you so much for the explanation!

[@name-yn6vu]

@@maapauu4282 np)

[@egbront1506]

Dogging has a sexual connotation in English, so probably not the best example to use.

[@CIAinTaiwanAndUkraine]

the Philippines also have this, we usually prefix "i-" to verbalize something

[@Razorcarl]

I-tae.

[@harry.tallbelt6707]

"Everything is a verb" gives a distinct "everything is on a cob" energy 🤔

[@blockyneko6143]

When I subbed they had ~160, and now they have 2.55K? awesome! :D

[@Ant_Diplodicus]

As someone who's studying Georgian, the moment I saw Georgian at 3:54 I was laughing MY ASS OFF, really nice pun. The Grammar though (OUTSIDE OF VERBS) isn't actually that hard, just a lot to learn, sure it might make me wanna pull my hair out, but Georgian wouldn't be the same cool, extrodenarily unique language without it, so I love it nevertheless

[@faresalhawaj9936]

The topic of this video interesting. Yes, this is how we say it in Arabic, without "is". In Arabic, there are words that mean "to be". However, they are not essential in the sentence.

[@MrlspPrt]

Higher-order natural language? I was thinking about working with Náhuatl (I'm from México), but I see it's more complex than I thought.

[@DanksterPaws]

Before watching the video, i took a guess on what this could mean. I guessed the nouns could become “to be noun” verb and I was right!

[@korana6308]

Depending on what you want to express, you can have those copulas in Russian to, they are just unnecessary and hence why are uncommon . For example in older Russian there was this famous " Азъ есьм " ( Я есьм) which translates to "I am" , and in modern Russian you can still technically say " Я есть" / "Он есть" / "Это есть" "to mean "I is" / " He is" / " It is" . As well as other articles ("copulas") etc...

[@EdwindePaula]

please a video.on kalaallisut

[@Archimedes-Of-Syracuse]

I made a conlang where this is technically possible through a pair of suffixes

[@elisexxiv]

this is oddly similar to the way the copula works in Southern New England Algonquian languages (idk about other Algonquian/Algic languages)

[@maritoguionyo]

Ooo Nahuatl

[@SuperCityscan]

I thought you would go into how every noun in English can be used as verbs and make some sense Although I think that works in almost all language

[@davidkinnear1905]

So in Nahuatl would the third person singular be used when talking about the doing of an action itself? Like "helping is good" in English would transliterate to Nauhatl as "it is help good"?

[@SBVCP]

How does it changes when it is an adjective or other things? Like for example, there is a difference between "I am A docto" vs "I am THE doctor" vs "I am LIKE A doctor" Excuse my ignorance in linguistics

[@aurelianpopescu1151]

now i am constructing the r'oyya language which is polysynthetic like nahuatl it has aggreement like nahuatl it also strings on affixes for turning a noun into a verb using the suffix ''nga'' so if p'alu means lake p'alunga means to be in water but p'alunganga means to bathe amd p'alunganganga means to swim panp'alunganganga means you swim but you can say panp'alungangangatu you swim in a pool but you can also use a lone gerund panp'alungangangatutur literally i swimming in pool there are no adjectives just like wolof but instead of using verbs like wolof r'oyya uses adjectival classifiers that are stringed to the noun or verb giving a bit of ambiguity like fal the classifier for pleasant things so if p'alu means lake falp'alu means pleasant lake like in the sentence ifalp'alungatuessa i swam in a pleasant lake . that's all i need to tell you i am nine years old and i am a romanian nerd.

[@abarette_]

based 9 yo language nerd (did you mean that you've been a nerd for nine years?)

[@klikkolee]

to me, phrasing like "every noun can be a verb" doesn't describe this at all. That phrasing to me would be a language where every object is inherently associated with a fairly unique action. the grammar pattern in the video is I believe better described by saying that the prefixes and similar inflections contain or imply the verb.

[@wasmic5z]

Verbs don't have to be actions. They can also describe states or spontaneous occurences. Yes, even in English. Simple example: "to be" is not an action, but a state. "To fall" is also not an action, but a state of being. 'Person' can just as well be considered a state-of-being applying to an object, as it can be considered an object in itself. And thus, it makes sense to say that it's a verb. A similar situation happens in Japanese, where the so-called 'i-adjectives' are actually verbs (that developed from a class of adjectives). There, 青い (aoi) is not an adjective meaning 'blue', but a verb meaning 'blue'. It makes no sense to talk about an "implied verb" because there is no situation where you would actually put an extra verb in there. From the point of view of a native speaker, the word itself is the verb. It does not contain or imply some other verb - it simply is a verb.

[@whenthedustfallsaway]

@@wasmic5z to be is not a verb. fall is a verb. A verb is almost always an action. Stative verbs describe internal actions. Falling is not stative.

[@wasmic5z]

@@whenthedustfallsaway What? "To be" is absolutely a verb. Look it up in any dictionary, and it will be listed as a verb. It can be used as a verb, an auxiliary verb, or a linking verb (copula). Now, linguistics is not a hard science and you might be able to find some obscure analysis where "to be" is not a verb - but in all widely accepted English grammar, "to be" is classified as a verb.

[@neverdie0001]

also consider toki pona, put li before almost every word to make it a verb

[@Mnogojazyk]

I wonder how Dr. Chomsky’s Principles and Parameters (Government and Binding) model accounts for this.

[@lavenderhuman]

3:13 Nahuatl Sleep Experiment be like: titehhuah

[@Buckload]

Hey can you do the Filipino language, since it's a very interesting language

[@utkangezer]

I was going to recommend you looking into Turkish… and then you did

[@wos_liwet]

The point where Nahuatl turns pronouns into verbs remind me of Indonesian :D Indonesian can do it too! _Saya_ 'I; me (formal)' → _bersaya_ 'to use the formal I' _Aku_ 'I; me (casual)' → _beraku_ 'to use the casual I_ → _mengakui_ 'to admit smth' → _mengakukan_ 'to make smn admit smth' _Engkau_ 'you (casual)' → _berengkau_ 'to use the casual you_ _Dia_ 'he; she; it; they (casual)' → _mendiakan_ 'to use the casual 3S' The similar paradigm can be applied to honorifics too: _Tuan_ 'lord; master' → _bertuan_ 'to call smn your lord' _Ibu_ 'mother' → _beribu_ 'to call smn your mother' _Guru_ 'teacher' → _berguru_ 'to call smn your teacher'

[@Ishaan_Garud]

Sanskrit : Am I a joke to you?

[@saeedgnu]

Sounds kinda like Persian, but Persian generally uses suffix markers instead of prefix markers (doctoram = I am a doctor).

[@mihaicipriandragos5459]

It would have been nice to youse the flag of the nahua people to represent nahualt, mainley because mexico as a whole is overwelmingley spanish speaking (and 80%of the population is fully or partialy ethnicaly spanish) and because hahuatl isn't the only indigenous language in mexico(examples include the diferent maya languages, zapotec, mixtec, otomi, etc.)

[@LingoLizard]

I did not know about the nahua flag, thank you for sharing!

[@JGHFunRun]

In English, if you think a word is not a verb then you're not verbing hard enough. VERB HARDER!

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

Isn’t this also true for many Bantu languages? I’m not great at Zulu but because of how agglutinative it is, the verb to be can also become one word with the noun. ngingudokotela = I am a doctor

[@jefesusmuel8392]

As a Mexican who speaks Spanish but not náhuatl and has English as a second language this feels like putting a bunch of adapters before plugging something in

[@wasnt.here.3853]

The beginning of this video was just me going "Oh, just like in Turkish, yea that's like Turkish. hmm think I've seen that in Turkish"

[@learnurduwithsara1068]

I didn't know about Nahuatl at all.

[@kztwitter]

I am youing!

[@theradiumgirl9298]

"verbing weirds language" - Calvin and Hobbes

[@abarette_]

I hate english

[@i_loveaxolotls059]

im gonna go and *yes* today

[@Shareenear]

*Ojibwe has entered the chat*

[@Ming-Yi_Fong]

I thought you would tall about salishan languages when I saw the tittle.

[@tuluppampam]

I read that the group "tl" is pronounced similar to the "sh" in English and the "X" in mandarin Chinese Pinyin And that makes sense to me because Nahuatl is a (c)v(c) language Edit: After spending time learning some IPA and reading the 2 replies, I can correct myself by saying that it is a lateral alveolar affricate tɬ So pronounced differently from the rest I've said

[@bignut7417]

I'm a fluent speaker of Nahuatl, the "tl" is more of putting your tongue on the back of your front teeth and expelling air fast or like hissing. The only letter pronounced like "sh" in Nahuatl is the "X". An example would be Axolotl (AH-SHO-LOW-TL [air expel]) or Mexica/Mexico (MEH-SHEE-KAH/ MEH-SHEE-KO) or Xochitl (SHO-CHEE-TL [air expel])

[@servantofaeie1569]

Tl is a voiceless lateral alveolar affricate /t͡ɬ/. Do you speak Welsh? Make LL into an affricate.

[@danielkover7157]

Was that the flag of Guernsey at the end? The other one looked like the flag for the Navajo Nation.

[@kristofkozari9040]

It was the flag of Georgia.

[@PatrickOfTav]

"There is no noun that cannot be verbed."

[@kijeenki]

so, toki pona

[@sethlangston181]

Did you just video how Nahuatl verbs?

[@YuutaShinjou113]

The "tl" sounded like a ch in child but the air coming out at the sides.

[@andersyu4464]

it is exactly that

[@bubblymochi7170]

Tagalog is similar

[@caenieve]

Nouns are cool. I’m talking words like flow, slide, dash, pet, hug, sleep... help.

[@swagatochatterjee7104]

Aah Bengali is also a Zero Copula language. Nice, just realized it despite being a native speaker.

[@faridtakqwim4332]

You should said bahasa bcs bahasa was spoken in indonesia malaysia and brunei

[@HobomanCat1]

Ah yes, the only language with an unmarked 3s!

[@raeplaysval]

toki pona

[@JoDusepo]

The language where EVERYTHING can be a verb? You mean Esperanto... right? Right? ;)

[@TYsdrawkcaB]

"grammar has a reputation of being really hard and annoying, but it's really not! ... in most cases."

[@kristyandesouza5980]

Portuguese can basicaly already do this, it's not correct but people are used to it