Problem:IOL/2004/i4/en
IOL 2004 Problem #4 Lakhota
Consider some words of Lakhota language (in Latin transliteration):
| kĩza | a single high-pitched tone sounds |
| žata | it (e.g. a road) forks into two parts |
| šuža | it is badly bruised |
| γi | it is brown |
| miniža | it is curled but can be smoothed again |
| geleza | it is ruled: | | | |
| nuγa | it is hard and immovable (e.g. a gnarl on a tree) |
| miniγa | it is shrunk permanently |
| zi | it is yellow |
| šli | thick liquid is being squeezed out |
| kĩža | a blending high-pitched tone sounds (e.g. a trill) |
| geleγa | it is striped: ▋ ▋ ▋ |
(a) Match the following words with their translations given in misarranged order:
it sparks, it is fractured, the surface is in a scratched condition, it has a slight bruise, the surface is in a scraped condition
(b) Translate into Lakota:
| a thin liquid is being squeezed out |
| it is soft and movable (e.g. an enlarged gland under the skin) |
| it is red hot |
| it is semi-hard and movable (e.g. a cartilage) |
| it is branching into several directions |
(c) Explain the meaning of the word ži.
⚠ The letter x is pronounced similarly to English h as in hard; the letter γ is the devoiced correlate of x; š and ž are pronounced similarly to sh as in shoe and s as in pleasure, respectively. The letters k' and ph signify specific Lakhota consonants, and ĩ, i, e signify specific Lakhota vowels. Lakhóta is an Indian language (Siou family). It is spoken by 6000 people in the USA and Canada.
—Ivan A. Derzhanski