Page:An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language).djvu/564

6 Go nimotsu, literally “August luggage.”

Wakarimashita, literally “Have understood.”

Kahodo nagaku Sapporo ni todomaru to shirimashita naraba, kerai wo tsurete kuru hazu de arimashita ga, wazuka bakari orimashō to omoimashita mon’ desu kara, tsurezu ni kimashita.

This last Japanese sentence is impossible to translate literally into our language, English (like Ainu) idiom insisting on the constant iteration of personal pronouns, which in Japanese would be, not merely inelegant, but ridiculous and confusing.

(7) Some traces of the use of “case,” as understood in Aryan grammar, exist in the Ainu first personal pronoun. The declension is as follows:—

 Japanese is devoid of everything of this nature.

(8) Some traces of a plural inflection are found in the conjugation of Ainu verbs. For Ainu verbs turn singular n into plural p, viz:—

In a few cases the p (or b) appears in a less regular manner. They are:—

In the following instances, different verbs have been assigned by usage to a singular or plural acceptation:—