Parseltongue: And how to speak it

Chapter 10: Common Nouns And ʃe-words: Common Verbs

You have already discovered a few nouns in the second assignment; if you look more closely at the class forum, you will see other nouns that your classmates have discovered as well. There is no strict rule on what nouns look like except for the general guideline that nouns usually do not have identical endings to other parts of speech; this is why Parseltongue teachers simply consider them "nouns" (and do not classify them according to their endings). In particular, it is rare for a noun to end in si (like a demonstrative pronoun), ʃ​ (like an interrogative pronoun), na (like an adjective), ne (like an adverb), ra (like a colour), ʃe (like a present tense verb), or ʃa (like a future tense verb). Note, however, that "rare" does not mean "non-existent"!

To express Parseltongue nouns in plural, you simply place the number before the noun; if the noun in question is the subject of the sentence, the number is used in place of "this" or "that". You already saw one number in the last assignment (though you may not have realized it at the time); numbers will be covered in more depth in the next lesson. For the purposes of this lesson, you can simply use the word sisisisi, which means "many", in place of numbers (as long as there is more than one object in question).

Below is a list of a few basic nouns that express fundamental concepts. Notice that unlike ai and ou, none of them look like their English equivalent. This is because the concepts all existed in Parseltongue before Parselmouths started seriously interacting with snakes!
Rat - kata
Bird - tuif
Human - ʃen
Owl - houk
Wand - ʃik
Book - pard
Clock - tikni
Quill - gisan
Sky - slan
Forest - riʃan
Castle - vinth
Path - fasar

You can usually recognize verbs by their endings. For example, every verb in the language has a standard form ending in 'ʃe'​. Verb endings in Parseltongue do NOT change to match their subject; the ending is ʃe regardless of whether the subject uses Tasi, Fasi, Ai, Ou, or a number that reflects plural! This is why verbs are considered "ʃe​"-words in Parseltongue. A few basic verbs are given below.
Do - dorʃe
Be - aʃe
Have - einʃe
Walk - vaʃe
Run - akaʃe
Jump - dinʃe
Drop - kaʃe
Grab - runʃe
Drink - sloʃe
Eat - giʃe
WARNING: Even though there is a form of 'be' in Parseltongue, it is only used to express properties that can change (much like the Spanish verb 'estar'). If expressing an inherent property that does not change, the sentence contains no verb!

EXAMPLES:
I am human. Ai ʃen.
​I am cold. Ai bana aʃe.

NOTE that if a sentence either contains no verb (because 'to be' is implied) or has 'to be' as its verb, its object does not require a -si word! This is why the first example above is "Ai ʃen" and not "Ai fasi ʃen": otherwise, you'd be saying "I am that human" instead of "I am human".