# Miskito/Introduction

## Welcome to *Miskitu Aisas!*

!Flag of the Miskito
Nation{width="250"}

*Miskitu Aisas!* (\"Speak Miskito!\"), a language course in Wikibooks,
is an elementary introduction to the Miskito language, spoken in parts
of Nicaragua and Honduras. The course focuses primarily on presenting
the grammar basics through carefully graded and didactically presented
lessons. *Miskitu Aisas!* assumes no prior knowledge of the language and
no specialised knowledge of linguistics, although at least a general
background in \"school grammar\" will no doubt be helpful, as will any
previous experience at learning foreign languages.

As well as an understanding of the language\'s overall structure,
*Miskitu Aisas!* will also provide you with a knowledge of some basic
vocabulary, and will give you the essential preparation needed to
continue studying Miskito by other means, if you should wish to do so. A
variety of exercises at every step in the learning path will help you
gradually to assimilate both grammar and vocabulary, and to check your
progress through comparison of the answers provided. A handy feature
that makes this on-line course more interactive is found in the
Show/Hide toggle switches that accompany model sentences, exercises and
vocabularies. These allow you to customise each page and adapt it to
your progress and learning pace by either displaying or concealing
translations, answers and meanings.

In the rest of this introduction you can read about who the Miskito
people are and what their language is, and how to use this course, as
well as quick links to some key pages in the course.

## The Miskito people and their language

!Location of Central America and the
Caribbean{width="250"}
!Map of Central America and the
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The Miskito people inhabit an area along the Caribbean (Atlantic) coast
of Central America. This area, known as the Mosquito Coast, is mostly
within the state of Nicaragua, with a northern section in a neighbouring
region of Honduras. The territory extends from Cape Cameron in the north
to Río Grande in the south. In origin the Miskitos were a local
indigenous people, but in the post-colonial era a great deal of racial
mixing occurred. A major component of the present population is
descended from escaped slaves from other areas who sought refuge among
the Miskito people.

Because of the inaccessibility of the Miskitos\' territory, Spanish
settlers did not begin to arrive until 1787 and even after this the
Miskitos, who already had an experienced army and an established
political structure, continued to dominate the land, which consequently
suffered only limited influence from the Spanish conquest. The Miskitos
remained independent until 1894 when their land became part of
Nicaragua, but the Nicaraguans, like the Spanish before them, exercised
little control and many Miskitos, even today, do not consider themselves
Nicaraguan. !Former British
Protectorate{width="415"
height="415"} On the other hand, the Miskito people entered into contact
with British colonists as early as the beginning of the seventeenth
century, and during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they
continued to be influenced by the British, who had economic interests in
the area, particularly in the territory of Belize to the northwest (the
colonial name for which was British Honduras). As allies of the British
the Miskitos were sucked into the slave trade, often being involved in
raids against Spanish settlements in Honduras. Such activities brought
the Miskitos into contact with other indigenous groups, to whom the
Miskitos tended to consider themselves culturally superior. The Miskitos
were ruled by their own kings who took on English names (the earliest
recorded king, named Oldman, received an audience with king Charles I),
and emulated European dress. Following a formal Treaty of Friendship and
Alliance between the Miskitos and Britain in 1740, the Miskito Nation
was formally a British protectorate until 1787, and British interest in
the region continued until the mid-nineteenth century.

In addition to the Miskitos\' native language, Miskito, large numbers of
Miskitos speak other languages, particularly Miskito Creole English
(which arose through contact with the British), neighbouring indigenous
languages such as Rama, and Spanish.

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**buk**

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*book*

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**dur**

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*door*

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**hilp**

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*help*

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**kî**

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*key*

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**laik**

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*like*

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**lalah**

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*money*

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`<small>`{=html}dollar`</small>`{=html}

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**lan**

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*learn*

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**nu**

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*know*

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`<small>`{=html}know`</small>`{=html}

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**pain**

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*well*

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`<small>`{=html}fine`</small>`{=html}

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**prias**

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*religious observance*

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`<small>`{=html}prayers`</small>`{=html}

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**sap**

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*shop, store*

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**skul**

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*school*

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**tibil**

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*table*

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**truk**

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*car, vehicle*

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**want**

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*want*

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**wark**

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*work*

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**windar**

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*window*

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With nearly 200,000 speakers, Miskito is the most widely spoken of a
family of languages of Nicaragua and Honduras that has come to be known
as Misumalpan. This name is formed from parts of the names of the
family\'s subgroups: MIskito, SUmo, MAtagaLPAN. Although some aspects of
the internal family tree within this family are uncertain, it is clear
that Miskito stands apart from Sumo and Matagalpan, which seem to share
a common lower node, and that in the past Miskito was heavily influenced
by other Misumalpan languages. Sumo is thought to have been dominant in
the area before the period of Miskito ascendancy. Today the relationship
has been reversed: many former Sumo speakers have shifted to Miskito,
which has in turn heavily influenced the Sumo dialects. Several of these
(Tawahka, Panamahka and Tuahka) constitute the Mayangna sub-branch of
Sumo, while the Ulwa language is in another sub-branch. The Matagalpan
branch of Misumalpan contains two languages that are now extinct:
Matagalpa and Cacaopera. The latter was formerly spoken in parts of
eastern El Salvador.

In addition to many elements borrowed from other Misumalpan languages,
Miskito has a large number of loanwords from English via Creole, such as
those in the table on the left. All the above words occur in the first
ten lessons of *Miskitu Aisas!* Notice how their sounds are adapted to
the Miskito language, which only has three vowels: *a, i, u*.

Even though Spanish is the official language of Nicaragua and Honduras,
its influence on Miskito is much more recent and hence more
superficial.\
\
\
\

## How to use the course

### Contents and navigation

There are basically two ways to move around inside this course: (1) use
the Table of Contents, or (2) move from page to page using the
navigation links.

#### The table of contents

You can get to the table of contents from the course\'s front page, and
also from any other page in the course through a navigation link (see
below). You can look at the table of contents 
right now, if you wish. You are recommended to open it up in a separate
browser window so that you can continue reading this page while you
inspect the table of contents.

Every page that you need to see as part of the course has a link from
the table of contents. Notice how the table of contents page is
organised. On the right-hand side there is a list with a darker
background, with the heading **\"The project\"** at the top. This
section has information about the project of creating this course which
may or may not interest you as a user (rather than an author) of the
course. A little lower down you see another section, **\"Author\'s
workbench\"**, which contains more technical information that is
important for people working on development of the course, but probably
unnecessary for other readers. The rest of the table of contents, with a
paler blue background, includes everything that people using the course
to learn (or learn about) Miskito will need. This is also divided into
several sections which will now be mentioned.

The **\"Getting started\"** section is where you are now, and as well as
this introduction it also includes a guide to pronouncing and spelling
the language. These are the pages you will probably want to have at
least a quick look at before starting on the lessons. You can always
come back to them later on for more detailed study whenever you feel the
need.

Next comes the biggest and most important section, **\"The lessons\"**.
The links to the first ten lessons are placed where you can\'t miss
them: in the middle of the screen, immediately after the \"Getting
started\" section. When you get through those, you can scroll down a
little to see the rest of the lessons currently available.

Near the bottom of the table of contents there are two more sections:
**\"Reference section\"** (with vocabularies, appendices, a list of
abbreviations and a subject index) and **\"More about Miskito\"** (an
external links page and a discussion page).

#### Page-to-page navigation

At the top of every page in the course you will see the flag of the
historical Miskito Nation, which is the logo of the course, together
with the title of the page or lesson. Notice the three links to the left
of the flag logo:

-   a \"backwards\" link which will usually take you to the previous
    page (assuming you are following the pages of the course in order)
-   a \"forwards\" link (marked **\>Next**) which takes you to the next
    page in order
-   a \"Contents\" link, which takes you back to the table of contents
    from any page in the course

You can use these to get around the course. If the \"backwards\" or
\"forwards\" link takes you where you want to go, you are there with one
click. If not, you can go to the table of contents and from there to
wherever you want (two clicks away!).

Notice too that there are some links over the vocabulary lists in each
lesson providing short cuts to the general vocabularies, the list of
abbreviations and the subject index. These will often help you to look
up things that you can\'t remember and are not in the lesson\'s
vocabulary list.

### Structure of the course

If you are a new user of this course, it would be a good idea to open up
**Lesson 1** (or any other lesson, if you
prefer) in a separate browser window so that you can examine it while
reading the following description.

Each lesson consists of several learning points, which form the main
part of the lesson. At the end of the lesson there is a final section
containing a list of the new words in the lesson (the Vocabulary) and a
practice activity (a review exercise or a reading). At the beginning of
the lesson the table of contents lists the learning points.

Each learning point consists of three components: (1) model sentences,
(2) comments and (3) a short practice activity or exercise. Different
people learn in different ways, so it is up to each learner to decide
exactly how to use these. If we think of the comments as \"rules\", then
the model sentences act as \"examples\" to illustrate them. Some people
like to study the examples first and read the rules afterwards. If you
are able to infer the rule from the model sentences, then the comment
will serve to confirm your hypothesis, if it was right, or correct it,
if it wasn\'t. If you follow this procedure, you will probably want to
look at the translations of the model sentences, unless you can guess
them, by clicking on the \"Show\" switch on the right.

If, on the other hand, you prefer to work from rules to examples, then
leave the translations hidden at first. After reading the comments, see
if you can work out what the examples mean before looking up their
meanings. You may like to consult the vocabulary at the end of the
lesson as you do this; it will give you a better chance of getting them
right.

Don\'t skip the practice activity. You can use it to check whether you
understand the point, to test yourself, or to get accustomed to the
mechanisms of the language. The exercises will also help you to acquire
the vocabulary. Always try the exercise with the answers hidden first
before clicking on \"Show\" to see if you were right.

When you come to the vocabulary list, if you have already worked through
the preceding points and gone through the model sentences and exercises
you should already know most of the words on the list by now. In fact,
you can easily give yourself a vocabulary test, since the meaning of
each word will not be visible until you click on the corresponding
\"Show\" button.

The exercise or reading that follows the vocabulary will touch on
several of the points you have studied in the lesson and also reviews
both old and new vocabulary items. Once again, hide or display the
answers as it suits you.

## Where to next?

