2.8 Question words (who / what / which) — HIGH value
2 · Pronouns · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar
You can't have a conversation without these.
| word | meaning | notes |
|---|---|---|
| mani (also may)* | who? | may is just a shortened mani |
| mu (also mudi, muy)* | what? | all three are variants — mu is the shortest |
| em | which? |
Question words in action (from Khan, in this guide's spelling):
| Assyrian | English |
|---|---|
| mani tile? | Who has come? |
| mu vadet? (or mudi vadet?) | What are you doing? |
| mudile? (or muyle?) | What is it? |
| em-beta et-diyyokhle? | Which house is yours? |
| em urkha berrekhshela al-mata? | Which road goes to the village? |
"Which one of…?" — when which means "which of a group," it takes the base emn- plus the possessive endings (again!):
- emne? — which of them?
- emnokhun? — which of you?
- emnan? — which of us?
Handy idiom: mudyukhle? can mean "what's the matter with you?" or "how is he related to you?" depending on context — a real everyday phrase worth banking.
Question words also start "whoever / whichever" clauses:
- mani byayele ate menni, azakh. — "Whoever wants to come with me, let's go."
- emnokhun bayye ate menni, azakh. — "Whichever of you wants to come with me, let's go."
Go deeper
The questions you'll ask first, all from Khan's dictionary:
| Assyrian | English | from |
|---|---|---|
| dakhivet? | how are you? | dict. p.141 |
| mani gu-betele? | who is in the house? | dict. p.207 |
| muile? | what is it? | dict. p.222 |
| kma shenne etlukh? | how old are you? | dict. p.121 |
| tima daha kmaile? | what does this cost? | dict. p.121 |
| ka-muivet tamma? | why are you there? | dict. p.178 |
| ka-mu mkhayot a brata? | why are you beating this girl? | dict. p.178 |
"How", "what" and "why" as exclamations. A question word doesn't always ask:
| Assyrian | English | from |
|---|---|---|
| dakh mennukh tilukh! | what a surprise that you've come! | dict. p.141 |
| kma khmarenva! | what an ass I was! | dict. p.121 |
| kam kha-akhcha narahat ivet? | why are you so upset? (= don't be) | dict. p.178 |
"How about…?": dakhila ("how is it?") offers a suggestion:
| Assyrian | English | from |
|---|---|---|
| dakhila ana lablen lakhkha gu bet-malka anne zabnennun? | how about I take them here into the king's house and sell them? | dict. p.141 |
A question word inside a sentence ("tell me who you are", "I'll see what I can do") is covered in What someone said, asked, or saw (Chapter 9B).
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Skipped from Khan (logged for completeness)
- §2.2 historical & comparative material — where aha comes from (hāḏā), the ad-lele "tonight" / udyu "today" fossils, the Guylasar (Armenia) and Caucasus variants (iyya, ya, ēn, oxa/exa), and comparisons to other NENA dialects (Barwar, Qaraqosh, Alqosh…). Reason: comparative linguistics; no speaking payoff.
- §2.2 full "nominative vs. oblique" paradigm — collapsed into the single practical rule "add a d- after a preposition." The formal grid is skipped.
- §2.3 edge-case morphology — loanwords ending in a consonant (heyvan → heyvanu), -t- gemination in feminine -at nouns (hakyat → hakyattu "his story"), and numerals taking possessive suffixes. Reason: fine phonological detail; worth an "advanced" appendix later, not now.
- §2.8 etymology of the question words — contraction history (may from mani, muy/mudi from ma-məndi), NENA comparisons. Reason: word-history; the forms are what a speaker needs.
Chapter 2 complete. The theme to walk away with: one set of possessive endings (-i, -ukh, -akh, -okhun, -u, -o, -e, -an) attaches to nouns, to diyy- for "mine/yours" alone, to gan- for "myself", to b-nosh- for "by myself", and to emn- for "which of us". Learn it once, reuse it five ways.