I hope you had fun with the audio and text of Moro! As you can see from the
text, even though Moro is intended for elementary school kids, there's a lot
of complicated grammar and vocabulary. Poetry makes everything more
complicated, but I hope that you were able to hear some of the rhythm and how
the different sounds worked, like the macrons. We had a lot of fun with it, so
we'll be doing some different audio posts in the future too. (For one, audio
will let me write about ēst!)

I thought I'd write about some of the vocabulary used in Moro for this week's
Wordy Wednesday.

  * **godāt** : to honor, respect or revere [slider title="conjugate me"] _godāt_ , 2. konj.  
_tag._ godāju, godā, godā, godājam, godājat  
_pag._ godāju, godāji, godāja, godājām, godājāt  
_nak._ godāšu, godāsi, godās, godāsim, godāsiet / godāsit  
_pav._ godā, godājiet [/slider]

This is probably one of the more challenging parts of Moro (at least for
beginners) and it shows up in the first two lines! Godā can look like _either_
a verb or a noun! It's hardly fair. In Moro's case, the verb is on line 1 and
the noun is on line 2.

  * **gods** : honor [slider title="decline me"] _gods_ , m, 1. dekl.  
_vsk_.: gods, goda, godam, godu, ar godu, godā  
_dsk_.: godi, godu, godiem, godus, ar godiem, godos [/slider]

This is an extremely flexible word, easily as flexible as honor is in English
with all sorts of little phrases and idiomatic expressions used with it.

  * **cinis** : mound, hillock or knoll [slider title="decline me"] _cinis_ , m, 2. dekl.  
_vsk_.: cinis, ciņa, cinim, cini, ar cini, cinī  
_dsk_.: ciņi, ciņu, ciņiem, ciņus, ar ciņiem, ciņos [/slider]

This word is a bit archaic, both in Latvian and in English. However, if you
study Latvian folktales or stories at all, you'll come across this one pretty
frequently.

There is a little proverb with the diminutive form of this word too: "Mazs
cinītis gāž lielu vezumu." This means roughly: "A tiny mound fells the great
cartload." However, my dictionary translates it as a different proverb:
"Little strokes fell great oaks" which doesn't quite have the same feel as the
original. Ahhh, translation.

  * **valsts** : country [slider title="decline me"] _valsts_ , f, 6. dekl.  
_vsk_.: valsts, valsts, valstij, valsti, ar valsti, valstī  
_dsk_.: valstis, valstu, valstīm, valstis, ar valstīm, valstīs [/slider]

This is a bit confusing. Even though valsts looks like a 1st declension
masculine noun, it is actually a feminine 6th declension noun. All countries
are considered feminine, just like all rivers are feminine and all lakes are
masculine. It simply is. This also applies to names of countries - Latvija,
with its -a ending, is obviously feminine, as is Nīderlande.

Also note that the plural genitive here does not get palatalized. If you
palatalized the -t, you would then get a -š next to a -s and that would be
very, very strange! Not to mention difficult to pronounce. So, it doesn't
change.

  * **pavalstnieks** : subject, citizen [slider title="decline me"] _pavalstnieks_ , m, 1. dekl.  
_vsk_.: pavalstnieks, pavalstnieka, pavalstniekam, pavalstnieku, ar
pavalstnieku, pavalstniekā  
_dsk_.: pavalstnieki, pavalstnieku, pavalstniekiem, pavalstniekus, ar
pavalstniekiem, pavalstniekos [/slider]

To create this word, we combine three different things together: the prefix
pa- for "sub" \+ valsts for "country" \+ the suffix -nieks for "person" to
create a "subject" under a ruler, in this case, a prince.

Pa- can be used for "sub" or "under", which is kinda different from the
"under" given by zem-. There's a few words that deal with being figuratively
"under" someone else in a hierarchy and they all start with pa-, like
_padotais_ (an underling) or _pavaldonis_ (a regent).

As shown in previous Wordy Wednesdays, the suffix -nieks changes to -niece for
women, so a female citizen is a _pavalstniece_.

  * **apkrākāt** : to crow, to caw [slider title="conjugate me"] _apkrākāt_ , 2. konj.  
_tag._ apkrākāju, apkrākā, apkrākā, apkrākājam, apkrākājat  
_pag._ apkrākāju, apkrākāji, apkrākāja, apkrākājām, apkrākājāt  
_nak._ apkrākāšu, apkrākāsi, apkrākās, apkrākāsim, apkrākāsiet / apkrākāsit  
_pav._ apkrākā, apkrākājiet [/slider]

This is fun. This is not a real word! (At least, it isn't a word given in ANY
of my dictionaries, online or offline.) It's a created word for the passage
and is onomatopoeic of a crow's caw. As with English, Latvian allows you to
play around and create words -- provided you play by the rules and conjugate
(or decline) it properly. Now, which set of rules?

It's pretty clear that _apkrākāt_ has to be either 2nd or 3rd (long or mixed)
and cannot be 1st which would require it to be one syllable after the ap-.
Artis looked at it and said that _obviously_ it is long. Why? Because it
sounds better. It just doesn't sound good in mixed, doesn't _work_ and
probably because it doesn't sound like a crow as much in the mixed, he says.
If it were in mixed, you'd lose the final -ā-, and you'd lose a lot of the
_sound_ of a crow.

Me, I clearly have a ways to go on training my "ear" for what sounds "right"
in the language but I have to agree that it sounds more like a crow in the
long than the mixed.