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Some languages, like Mohawk have very complicated word structures, and often a single word may be a sentence in English.

Kewistos means "I am cold".

ya?tunsahayahyake? means "He went across it again".

But for real complexity consider English, Latin and Mohawk

English

SingularPlural
I am coldWe are cold
You are coldYou are cold
He/she/it is coldThey are cold


Latin

SingularPlural
amoamamus
amasamatis
amatamant


Mohawk


SingularDualPlural
kewisos (I am cold)teniwistos (We two are cold)tewawistos (We all are cold)
yakeniwistos (We two are cold)yakwawistos (We all are cold)
sewistos (You are cold)seniwistos (You two are cold)sewawistos (You all are cold)
rawistos (He is cold)niwistos (Those two are cold)ratiwistos (They all are cold)
kawistos (She/It is cold)keniwistos (Those two women are cold)kutiwistos (All those women are cold)
yewistos (She/One is cold)

One of the first things one notices is that Mohawk has a third column of terms. Unlike English and Latin, Mohawk distnguishes not only a singular (one person) and a plural (many people), but also a dual - two people! Hence we have sewistos, "You are cold"; seniwistos "the two of you are cold" and finally "sewawistos" All of you are cold".

A second difference is seen in the two forms of "we" in the dual and plural. One, teniwistos, means "The two of us, you and I" whereas the other yakeniwistos means "The two of us, that person and I". Similarly in the plural form, tewawistos means "All of us, including you" while yakwawistos means "all of us, but not you"!

In the third place, Mohawk disinguishes two forms of "they" in the dual and plural. One means "Those men", or "Those men and women"; the other means "Those women"! This is not unlike some languages like Spanish, which make a distinction between "ellos" and "ellas".

Finally, there is a distinction made between two forms for "she". One (kawistos) can mean "she" or "it", while the other (yewistos) means "she" or "one".

How does one decide which one to use for she? This caries somewhat from dialect to dialect, but often the second is restricted to "little old ladies, young girls, mothers, and older sisters". The other is used for all other women.

This is just a small sample of the complexity of the language. In the present tense alone, intransiive verbs have 15 forms (as opposed to 6 n Latin and only 2 in English! In Mohawk, transitive verbs have 55 forms in the present tense. To these can be added past, future and indefinite tense markers bringing the number of words to 220 for just one verb alone with ONLY tense markers! Clearly, this is not a language with only 400 words!

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