Grammar » 3 » Where are you from?

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?