tya

tya

1. to choose

• Russel Schuh, Aspects of Avatime phonology (1995), Studies in African Linguistics 24(1): 31–67, page 36

• IPA^(key): /tja/

tya

1. my man/men, buddy, guys, fellas, dude, my mate(s) (friendly, sociable, jocular term of address from one man to another, often heard when men are relaxing in public, such as in the men's house)

   Ah. Kanai katou no?

   Katsa onai ha yi, tya! Itsatai yai nu jano.

   [male audience member, interrupting storyteller:] Ah. Where was this, anyway? [Where did this happen?]

   [storyteller:] Where indeed, my man! I wonder myself. What I have told you is all that I know.

   Salalawiu.

   Ah.

   Nejo iya kala — laki-laki inakuapai yi, tya. Itse ipenuwaka kaliuno.

   [Storyteller:] [The gigantic Caiman Spirit] stood motionless before them, perfectly still.

   [male audience member:] Ah.

   [Storyteller:] He approached [the size of] that beast in the laki-laki, you guys. [He] was monstrous, enormous. [Comparing the size of the Caiman Spirit to that of a whale being cut up by arctic hunters, an image the Wauja had seen in a View-Master slide. The Wauja dubbed the View-Master device "laki-laki," in reference to the clicking sound it made.]

   Ah.

   Pako! Hinemeke! Pwa! Aitsa minya nikinyantawani, tya! Aitsa minya nikiyanta!

   [The storyteller recounts how the Caiman Spirit has relations with the elder sister, and then describes the younger sister removing the palm fiber belt from her hips, preparing to receive him, as well.]

   [male audience member:] Ah.

   [Storyteller:] Paki! [Thud!] Again he knelt on the ground. [Aside to the audience:] Gee, fellas, I don't think I would get an erection again already! I wouldn't get another one that fast!

   Onupa akain, aha!

   Ah, wekewi!

   Weke, tya!

   [Storyteller:] [The women] saw a huge piqui tree! [growing where the ashes of their lover had been]

   [Male audience member:] So it was big [already]?

   [Storyteller:] [That tree was] immense, you guys!

   Otoyein yiu!

   Ah.

   Aaa! Eh, mohonja, tya!

   Aha.

   [Storyteller:] It was his former penis! [From the ashes of her lover's body had grown the piqui trees, and the fruit of the tree was his own fruit, his seed, his penis. Oto can variously mean seed, fruit, or genitals.]

   [Male audience member:] Ah.

   [Storyteller:] Aaah, the flesh [of the fruit] was red, my man [like the red paint he had worn on his body]!

   [Male audience member:] Aha.

   Aitsa inyankapaapai?

   Aitsa inyankapaapai! Kamani ja inyakapenejo yi! Ojo yama ujau, tya!

   [male audience member interrupting storyteller:] They didn't tell anyone?

   [Storyteller:] Most certainly they did not! Why should they tell those people anything! Now, fellas, here was a parrot [who would divulge the secret].

• "My man" is a very rough translation of the term tya, as there is no exact counterpart in modern English. This is a traditional term of address between men who are speaking in a tone that is both polite and very friendly. It expresses a cheerful, jovial, generous form of masculine sociability. Unlike the rough English translations, the Wauja word tya is not slang at all. In fact, tya is often heard on formal ceremonial occasions, during the festive give-and-take of public interactions among men coming together as a group, with friendly intentions.
• Note that in all the examples above, the term tya is used when the storyteller is responding to a question or comment from a male audience member. In the 88-page transcript of this traditional story, there are many instances in which a comment from a male audience member elicits an answer from the storyteller that does not incude tya, but whenever tya was uttered, it was in direct response to a comment from a male audience member.
• In all the examples, I have translated the term tya variously as singular or plural, although the Wauja term does not specify whether the referent is singular or plural — it can be either or both, depending on context. In this particular instance of storytelling, the storyteller was responding to comments from male audience members, while performing the story in the men's house for a large, mostly male audience. When a story is performed in the setting of the home, the audience comments are just as likely to come from women.
• Though this term was routinely used by well-spoken male elders in 1981, a generation later, it seems to be heard less often, and generally is not used by younger men. This may be because younger men are [ideally] supposed to be modest and refrain from unseemly jocularity in public, or because the term tya, like its female counterpart ju, is beginning to be seen by young people as archaic. Note that it is not a kinship term, but more like a term of gender solidarity.

• ju (“my dear(s), dearie”)

• "Ah. Kanai" (transcript, p. 16), "Salalawiu" (p. 18), "Ah. Paki!" (p. 35), "Onupa akain" (p. 69), "Otoyein" (p. 72-73), and "Aitsa inyankapaapai?" (p. 74) uttered by Aruta, storyteller and elder, as he recounted the traditional tale, "The Caiman Spirit" (Yakaojokuma). Recorded in Piyulaga village in the presence of assembled elders and others, November 1989.

tya

1. (Sangke) water

• Cornelis L. Voorhoeve, Languages of Irian Jaya Checklist (1975, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics), page 121

From Proto-Nguni [Term?], from Proto-Bantu *-dɪ́a.

• IPA^(key): [cá]

-tyá

1. to eat

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

• -tyisa