The difficulty for Marbak speakers is that the k sound must be distinguished from the q sound. The latter is made with the tongue much further back than the k. The closest approximation that a non-native speaker might make would be -rk.

There are also two distinct forms of l, one voiced, the other unvoiced. The unvoiced form is transcribed here as -dl or -tl to note this important difference.

Linguistic difficulty is not a one-way street. The Angurpiaq have problems with some of the Marbak sounds, finding them virtually unsayable. For example, Armun emerges as “Arramun” and Harl as “Harral” and so forth.

One of the most interesting things about the structure of this language is that it consists only of nouns and verbs. One of these begins every word. However this root term is open to scores of affixes which then can combine with even more affixes. In this way sentence-long words are built up. For example;

qingik a house

qingirssuak a large house

qingiliorpoq he builds a house

qubgirssualiorpoq he build a large house

qingirssualiorfilik a man can build a large house, and so on, apparently without end.

It is very important that the right-branching nature of this be noted. We are all used to left-branching constructions, such as;

house

a house

a large house

Once one system is used by a native speaker it becomes ‘natural’ to speak that way and organize language in this manner, making learning a new order particularly difficult.

In addition to affixes, nouns and verbs also have suffixes. These are used to mark case, person or mood. Verbs can be in the Indicative mood, or Interrogative, Subjunctive, Optative, Conjunctive, Infinitive. As an example of how this functions let us take “like” which in the infinitive is alutora.

alutoroq he likes

alutorut she likes

alutorauk does he like?

salutorassuk do they like?

alutorliuk may he like (Optative)

alutorlissuk may they like

alutorpagit he may like (Subjunctive)

alutorpatigik they may like

Although Marbak and Angurpiaq are not linguistically related, they are structurally related, even if in a mirror-image fashion. If Armun, for instance was to use alutora for “like”, then point to herself and then to some object that she likes it would be comprehensible. The Angurpiaq might consider her stupid for getting the ending wrong, but they would understand what she was trying to say. This is opposed to Yilanè where nothing would be understood at all that wasn’t expressed within specific and precise narrow bounds.