Belle, I will now select for you to conjugate the prettiest verb in Armenian; not only of the second, but also of all the four conjugations; that verb is siriel.Here is the present tense:- siriem, siries, sire, siriemk, sirek, sirien.You observe that it runs on just in the same manner as hntal, save and except that the e is substituted for a; and it will be as well to tell you that almost the only difference between the second, third, and fourth conjugation, and the first, is the substituting in the present, preterite and other tenses e or ou, or i for a; so you see that the Armenian verbs are by no means difficult.Come on, Belle, and say siriem." Belle hesitated."Pray oblige me, Belle, by saying siriem!" Belle still appeared to hesitate."You must admit, Belle, that it is much softer than hntam." "It is so," said Belle; "and to oblige you I will say siriem.""Very well indeed, Belle," said I."No vartabied, or doctor, could have pronounced it better; and now, to show you how verbs act upon pronouns in Armenian, I will say siriem zkiez.
Please to repeat siriem zkiez!" "Siriem zkiez!" said Belle;"that last word is very hard to say." "Sorry that you think so, Belle," said I."Now please to say siria zis." Belle did so."Exceedingly well," said I."Now say, yerani the sireir zis." "Yerani the sireir zis," said Belle.
"Capital!" said I; "you have now said, I love you - love me -ah! would that you would love me!"
"And I have said all these things?" said Belle."Yes," said I; "you have said them in Armenian." "I would have said them in no language that I understood," said Belle; "and it was very wrong of you to take advantage of my ignorance, and make me say such things." "Why so?" said I; "if you said them, Isaid them too." "You did so," said Belle; "but I believe you were merely bantering and jeering." "As I told you before, Belle," said I, "the chief difficulty which I find in teaching you Armenian proceeds from your persisting in applying to yourself and me every example I give." "Then you meant nothing after all," said Belle, raising her voice.
"Let us proceed," said I; "sirietsi, I loved." "You never loved any one but yourself," said Belle; "and what's more - ""Sirietsits, I will love," said I; "sirietsies, thou wilt love." "Never one so thoroughly heartless," said Belle."Itell you what, Belle, you are becoming intolerable, but we will change the verb; or rather I will now proceed to tell you here, that some of the Armenian conjugations have their anomalies; one species of these I wish to bring before your notice.As old Villotte says - from whose work I first contrived to pick up the rudiments of Armenian - 'Est verborum transitivorum, quorum infinitivus - ' but I forgot, you don't understand Latin.He says there are certain transitive verbs, whose infinitive is in outsaniel; the preterite in outsi; the imperative in one; for example -parghatsout-saniem, I irritate - "
"You do, you do," said Belle; "and it will be better for both of us, if you leave off doing so.""You would hardly believe, Belle," said I, "that the Armenian is in some respects closely connected with the Irish, but so it is; for example, that word parghatsout-saniem is evidently derived from the same root as feargaim, which, in Irish, is as much as to say I vex.""You do, indeed," said Belle, sobbing.
"But how do you account for it?"
