Ternate - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

TERNATE 144
THE TERNATESE LANGUAGE
There is no transitive voice, but there is a causative voice, which is formed by adding
si as a prefix. In many cases the initial consonant will change, e.g., kodiho becomes
sigodiho, wosa becomes singosa, tego becomes sidego, pane becomes sibane, etc. If the word
starts with a vowel, a letter is added for the sake of euphony, e.g., uni becomes siwuni, ise
becomes sigise, uci becomes siguci, etc. The reciprocal is formed by the prefix maku. As
particles for destination one uses kane and kage and for direction ie and tarah, isa and
hoko.
Numerals
for persons for things and animals
1 amoi rimoi
2 ngamodi romdidi
3 ngarukange raange
4 ngaruha raha
5 ngamotoha
[as corrected in Errata ⎯Trans.]
romotoha
6 ngarura rara
7 ngatomodi tomodi
8 ngatofkange tofkange
9 ngasio sio
10 nganyagimoi nyagimoi
11
[p. 201]
nganyagimoi si amoi nyagimoi si rimoi
12 nganyagimoi si ngamodi nyagimoi si romdidi
13 nganyagimoi si ngarukange nyagimoi si raange
20 nganyagiromdidi nyagiromdidi
21 nganyagiromdidi si amoi nyagiromdidi si rimoi
30 nganyagiraange nyagiraange
40 nganyagiraha nyagiraha
50 nganyagiromtoha nyagiromtoha
60 nganyagirara nyagirara
70 nganyagitomodi nyagitomodi
80 nganyagitofkange nyagitofkange
90 nganyagisio nyagisio
100 ngaratumoi ratumoi
200 ngaraturomdidi raturomdidi
1,000 ngacalamoi calamoi
2,000 ngacalaromdidi calaromdidi
10,000 ngacalanyagimoi calanyagimoi
These numerals come after the noun. With a given quantity of some things one uses
other words for clarification: e.g., for “houses,” hutu; for “trees,” hate; for “fruit,” sofo, etc.
The ordinal numbers do not differ from the cardinal numbers. For multiplication
the word walo, “time,” is used; dofu and moi-moi belong to the indefinite numbers.
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