LEX: Greetings and Polite Expressions

[Matthew Turnbull]

So a polite prelude to a converstion would be
A : Ne dau/gen zongas zai?
B : Makea zong ji

How would one catch someone's attention then? Like with an English "Excuse me, but ...?" I think that to continue on with this theme we have going, something like oma makea zai? there is peace?

[Miatato]

Hmmm... I think that might work.

I wonder if there might be a word related to makea that means "to make peace" or "to forgive" that could be used for some uses of "Excuse/Pardon me". How do we get a verb out of that noun?

[Miatato]

So a polite prelude to a converstion would be
A : Ne dau/gen zongas zai?
B : Makea zong ji

How would one catch someone's attention then? Like with an English "Excuse me, but ...?" I think that to continue on with this theme we have going, something like oma makea zai? there is peace?

Oh, I like oma there, if it means something like "there is". Even if it doesn't, it looks like it might come in handy in a number of expressions (that I haven't thought up yet-- just a hunch).

I should comb through some of these threads to find bits of undocumented vocabulary.

So, "Oma makea zai?" to get someone's attention works for me.