Page:An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language).djvu/563

Rh used more continually even than in English, although the abundant use of the passive is one of the features distinguishing English from all other Aryan tongues. Thus an Ainu will say Ene a-kari ka isam, “There is nothing to be done,” literally “Thus to-be-done-thing even is-not,” where a Japanese would say Shi-kata ga nai, literally “There is not a way to do.” Again, such a sentence as “In any case you must go viâ Sapporo,” would be in Ainu Neun neyakka Satporo a-kush, literally, “In any case Sapporo is traversed.” In Japanese it would be hard to turn such phrases passively at all. Much less would any such passives ever be employed either in literature or in colloquial.

(5) Ainu has great numbers of reflective verbs formed from transitives by means of the prefix yai, “self.” Thus yai-eram-poken, “to be sorry for oneself,” i.e., “to be disappointed”; yai-raige, “to commit suicide”; yai-kopuntek, “to be glad” (conf. se réjouir, and similar reflectives in French). Japanese has no reflective verbs.

(6) Whereas in Japanese those numerous but rarely used words, which foreign students term personal pronouns, are in reality nothing but honorific and humble locutions, like the “thy servant” of Scripture, and such expressions as “Your Excellency,” “Sire,” etc., Ainu has true pronouns. (E is “you”; kani, ku, and k’ are “I” in the following examples.) As a corollary to this, the Ainu pronouns are used at every turn, like the pronouns of modern European languages, thus:—

E koro shike, “Your luggage.”

Kani k’eraman, “I know;” more literally “Moi je sais.”

Satporo-kotan ta ohonno k’an kuni ku ramu yakun, ku koro eiwange kuru ku tura wa k’ek koroka, iruka k’an kuni ku ramu kusu, ku sak no k’ek ruwe ne, “Had I known that I should stay so long in Sapporo, I would have brought my servant with me. But, as I thought I should be here only a short time, I came without one.”

In Japanese, all these sentences would be expressed without the aid of a single word corresponding to a personal pronoun; thus:—