time to eat/Pulaar is hard

The Pulaar verb for eat is naamde. Eat your dinner, come and eat this greasy meat, etc. The way verbs work in Pulaar is there are very few prepositions, and just a lot of changing of the verb. For example, to with with somebody is naamdude. To be about to eat is naamoyde. To eat for someone else is naaminde. That is a lot of verbs to use when you are just talking about straight up eating. (And is not including all of the various tenses.)

Now what if you’re talking about a different kind of eating? Such as chewing, sucking, chomping? In English, these are simply colorful words used in novels in order to add depth to a dinner table scene, or make a character’s eating habits interesting. In Pulaar, most foods require the use of only a particular eating verb. Below is just a sample. (Keep in mind that because the verb basically depends on the consistency of the food, depending on how something is cooked it will be in a different category.)

Yukude/To Chew- Bread, peanuts, anything crispy like little fried fish or fried sweet potatoes
Muudde/To mash slowly- Boiled sweet potatoes, any kind of porridge, dirt, food that implies a stickiness almost, between the teeth
Medde/Take a bite- Anything of which you just want a sample, used to entice someone to try something. (Like “try a bite” but it implies a hand motion because the verb “to touch” is memde.)
Yarde/To Drink- Porridges, Sauces without a carb to eat it with, milk with couscous
Muucude/To Suck- Frozen juices, fruit that is very ripe, anything eaten from the corner of a plastic bag (this is more common than one would think.)

Bon appetit!