The affix ÷miu means someone who comes from the place described by the root of the word:
Utqiaġviŋmiu | someone from Utqiaġvik |
Ulġuniġmiu | someone from Wainwright |
Qaaktuġviŋmiu | someone from Kaktovik |
Tikiġaġmiu | someone from Point Hope |
Kalimiu | someone from Point Lay |
As we see in the above examples, ÷miu can appear at the end of a word. But we can also build onto it to talk about different people. We do this by adding the verb :u to the the end of ÷miu and following it with a verb ending. (We also need to insert g to prevent three vowels in a row):
Utqiaġviŋmiuguruŋa. | I am from Utqiaġvik. |
Ulġuniġmiuguruŋa. | I am from Waiwright. |
We can easily change the verb ending to talk about different people:
Qaaktuġviŋmiuguruguk. | We (2) are from Kaktovik. |
Tikiġaġmiugurusi. | You (3+) are from Point Hope. |
We can also add ÷miu to the question root su- (meaning what?) to create a question:
su ÷miu :u +viñ? = | |
Sumiuguviñ? | Where are you from? |
su ÷miu :u +va? = | |
Sumiuguva? | Where is s/he from? |