Another question! How you think would relative adverbs and pronouns work in Mando'a?
Relative pronouns
Canonically, Mando’a has one relative pronoun meg(in): meg before consonants, and megin before vowels. Meg(in) is given the definition of ‘which, what, that, who,’ and it seems to be a fairly general relativiser that is used to subordinate clauses:
Gai be’bic me’sen Aay’han, meg ade partayli darasuum.
“The name of this ship [is] Aay’han, which people [will] remember forever.”
Rejorhaa’ruetiise meg’oyacyi jorcu mhi r’asham.
“Tell the outsiders that [they] live because we died.”
Which includes the usage “who”:
Meg miit’gaana, oyacyi.
“[He] who writes, remains.”
Mhi draar baat'i meg'parjii'se
“We never care who wins,” literally, “We never care who [are the] victors”
Kar’tayli ad meg hukaat’kama
“Know who’s watching your back,” literally, “know the person who watches your back.”
Indeed, meg(in) can be ambiguous as to whether it refers to who or what:
Megin arasuumi, ash’amu.*
“[That] which stagnates, dies.” or, “[That] who stagnates, dies.”
In practice you often see meg shortened to me’:
Ni ru kyramu Niktose. Meh Orjul jehaati, kaysh kar’tayli me’ni ven kyramu kaysh.
“I killed the Nikto. If Orjul’s lying, he knows that I’ll kill him.”
It is similarly shortened in compound words:
me’sen, ‘ship’ < meg + sen, “that which flies”
me’suum, ‘planet’ < meg + suum ‘beyond’
me’dinuir, ‘to share’ < meg + dinuir ‘give’
See more examples below under interrogatives.
Relative adverbs
There are also a couple of relative adverbs: vaal and vaii (you might think they’re related; at least I do).
Vaal is given the definition of ‘during, while’:
Burc'ya vaal burk'yc, burc'ya veman.
“A friend in need is a friend indeed,” literally “a friend during danger is a true friend.”
But I would interpret it to also work as the relative adverb ‘when’:
Vaal beskar'adyc akaan’ade kebbu viinir be'chaaj teh ramorla aloriya ti kaysh waadasla ver'mircit, t'ad jetii alori aikiyc aka par tegaanalir mirci'la Palpatine…
“As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor....”
Verd'ike! Ni copaani me'sen cinyc vaal ni yaim'pa.*
“Privates! I want the ship to be spotless when I return.”
Ka’ra nu’dar’cuyi vaal mhi dar’haa’tayli te nau.*
“The stars do not cease to exist when we can no longer see their light.”¹
Vaal gar haa’tayli utra munit, utra haa’tayli gar balyc.*
“When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”²
Vaii means ‘where’ (as an adverb) or ‘direction’ (as a noun). As far as I can tell, it only appears in the question form tion’vaii (where?) and in the adjective vaii’la (directional) in canon, but given its similarity to vaal, I interpret it to mean ‘where’ (relative adverb) alone:
Ogir, vaii ibi’tuur moti cerare, ven’tuur sho’cyese; vaii ibi’tuur sho’cyese, ven’tuur ahane. A di’kute su di’kute.*
”There, where today stand mountains, one day [will be] deserts; where today [are] seas, one day [will be] deserts. But idiots [will] still [be] idiots.”³
Interrogatives (question words)
All of Mando’a interrogatives (question words) are compound words formed with the interrogative particle tion. They are only used in direct questions, not as relative pronouns or adverbs. Do not put tion anywhere that’s not the beginning of a question!
Tion’ad hukaat’kama?
“Who is watching [your] back?”
Tion’meg (gar) copaani?*
“Which one do (you) want?”
Tion’vaii mhi slana?*
“Where are we going?”
Tion’tuur mhi ba’slana?*
“When are we leaving?”
Tion’solet cuy?*
“How many are there?”
Traviss also sometimes spells the compound words separately, without a beten:
Tion vaii gar ru’cuyi?
“Where have you been?”
Note that the word order after the question word remains the same as in statements; no need to invert it like in English.
Tion gar’verborad’ni?
“Are you hiring me?”
Gar ru kyramu kaysh, di’kut: tion’meh kaysh ru jehaati?
“You killed him, you moron: what if he was lying?”
Although I guess you could mess with the grammatical word order for comical effect:
Mhi slana… tion’vaii??*
“We’re going… where??”
In addition to forming these fixed compounds, tion is a grammatical particle, so it seems it’s not restricted to only certain fixed compound words, but you can freely combine it to form new sentences. Which, with Mando’a’s tendency to treat grammatical particles as clitics that attach to other words, means you can make new compounds too.
Tion can be dropped in colloquial speech, i.e. when the question is implied by the context:
[Tion] copaani mirshmure’cye, vod?
“[Do you] want a smack in the face, pal?”
Which is why it sometimes looks like meg(in) is acting like a question word:
[Tion] me’copaani?
“What do you want?” or, “which one do you want?”
[Tion] me’vaar ti gar?
“What’s new with you?”
[Tion] me’bana?
“What’s happening?”
[Tion] me’ven?
“Huh?”
It’s not though; the sentence has just dropped the (implied) tion.
* Mine; the rest are by Traviss.
¹ From a fic by AppoApples, translation mine.
² And this one is probably familiar, it’s from Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche.
³ This is a proverb I stole from somewhere and reworded, but I can’t remember the original source.
