Ainu grammar lessons

Learn Ainu language and Ainu grammar

Here you can find the grammar lessons to learn the basics of Ainu. If you want to learn the basics of the Ainu language and Ainu grammar, this is the place to start. These lessons are meant for beginners and they become increasingly more advanced. Have fun learning!

The list bellow has links to all the Ainu language lessons and Ainu grammar points available on this site. The lessons are designed so that each lesson builds on top of what is learned in the previous lesson. So, let's say you want to learn about how to express relative location in Ainu (lesson 7) only. In that case, it might be a good idea to at least browse through the previous lessons (1–6).

• Lesson 1: The copula ne 'to be' (declarative sentence, negation with somo and ka somo ne) 

• Lesson 2: Expressing actions 1 (singular subject person markers and intransitive verbs, negating verbs with somo and ka somo ki; talking about the weather with avalent/0-argument verbs)

• Lesson 3: Expressing actions 2 (transitive verbs; ditransitive verbs; tense; adverbs of time and manner)

• Lesson 4: Expressing possession (my, yours, his/hers/its, affiliative form of nouns)

• Lesson 5: Me, you, her/him/it (singular object person markers: en-, eci-/∅-e-, ku-∅-/e-∅-)

• Lesson 6: Case in Ainu — case particles/postpositional adverbs (ta, un, wa(no), peka(no), ne, pak(no), ani, tura(no), eun)

• Lesson 7: Expressing place and location (relational nouns & place nouns vs. common nouns) 

• Lesson 8: Conjunctions (wa 'and then'; no 'without (doing)'; hine 'and'; ayne 'and finally'; kor 'when'; korka 'because'; kusu 'for that reason; in order to', yakun 'if; if that's the case', yakka 'even if'; na 'so'; sekor 'that')

• Lesson 9: Special verb forms—Lexical plural and lexical negative (special plural verb forms: paye 'to go', oka 'to exist', yap 'to go ashore', san 'to go down the river', hosippa 'to return', tuypa 'to cut'...; lexical negative: isam 'not to exist', sak 'not to have; to lack', erampewtek 'not to understand; not to know'...)

• Lesson 10: Imperative (do & don't do!: plain imperative & polite requests; particles yan, hani, yan(h)ani, prohibitions with iteki, na (hani); permission with yakka pirka)

Created on 2023/2/10, Latest update on 2023/10/26