
elenetiá
A liki ei i iko elenetiá kau!
“I lay claim to this pillow!”
Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!!! 
And look at this! The cat who doesn’t know the meaning of “lap”, and who is possessed of an irrational fear of soft and fluffy things, couchant upon…a pillow!

And we didn’t even put her there! She clambered on up of her own accord. Truly a startling development!
Today’s word has two different Zhyler sources. The word erenja (in the orthography, ereñja) in Zhyler means “bed”. Then there’s a separate word, erenša (ereñ,a), which means “pillow”. Both beds and pillows (and cushions) are imports to the Kamakawi islands, and so the words were borrowed. Additionally, since the words end up sounding the same in Kamakawi, a single word is used to cover both “bed” and “pillow”. Since that happened, the word is also used to cover all kinds of fluffy things you sit or lie upon—hence, the definition “cushion”. Elenetiá is used for all soft, stuffed or plush items, as well as beds, mattresses and pillows.
Since it’s come up, take a look at the word in Kamakawi above. In particular, take note of the last glyph. Then look again at the Zhyler form for “pillow”: ereñ,a. Notice the similarity?
In Zhyler, there are a number of noun classes which govern the entire lexicon. One of these noun classes is used for all manner of small manmade objects. The characteristic ending for this class is -ša (in the orthography, -,a).
Before the influx of Zhyler speakers to the islands, Kamakawi lacked an instrumental agentive suffix (something like the /-or/ in “radiator” or “flux capacitor”). With the advent of many new manmade products to the islands (and new processes), the Kamakawi fastened on the characteristic noun class ending as a kind of derivational suffix. And, noting the spellings, they treated the final two consonants as a kind of glyph, and created a glyph that stands for that ending (rendered -tiá in Kamakawi).
So, if we move ahead, say, 100 years, there are probably hundreds of words in Kamakawi that all end in -tiá, and all have the new “instrumental agent” iku on the end.
And that does it for the history lesson. (Or, actually, future lesson. Is there such a thing as futury…?)