A Ćwarmin Anecdote

Ćwarmin humour, much like ours, is often in a sense codified as 'jokes'. However, jokes are not told in isolation nor are they presented like 'hey, did you hear the one about the ...'. Instead, the better the anecdote is sneaked into just any discussion, the more the smoothness of the joke-teller will be appreciated. Here is one example.

olbanco  murutuka Taśum karn-utoś mərə-in-i, 
that-compl. Muri--acc-in Taśum long-gen travel.past.3sg
that's like when Taśum from Muri village travelled so far

bartan-sun
return.his
[that] (on) his return

un seben ragan taxugar-un-uv
him.dat right left [swap places].past.3_pauc
his right and left [had] swapped sides

This illustrates one aspect of Ćwarmin humour: short absurdist statements. It also illustrates another use of the nominative complement, viz. particularly with the demonstratives olba and arna, it can serve as a sort of full statement in itself, basically "it is thus/it is so/it is this". In this example, it's a bit more abstract, viz. "it is like with [...]", the following utterance being the referent to which the pronoun refers.

This particular joke has also made the rounds in Sargaĺk villages, in this form:

ot'a sin miv-tsa Muri-tsa Tasum t'obas t'obas ladur.an.u,
yea*, how** village-abl Muri-abl Tasum far far travel.past_prfct.3sg
that's like Tasum from Muri travelled very far

t'oba-tsa t'orme-an-u
far-from return-past_prftct.3sg
having returned from far away

limi-ta is kanra merenr-an-u
left he right replace.past_prfct.3sg
left replaced right for him

* cheap translation; ot'o serves to introduce statements of comparison or contrast or even surprise
** 'demonstrative how'