I have been meaning to write a post about language study for a while now … and here it is at last!
We have been studying Monkolé for six weeks. For those who are interested, it is a tonal language, with three distinct tones – rising, falling and flat. These correspond approximately to the tones used in English on the word 'right' in the following examples. Firstly, when someone wants to check they've understood and says, “You're coming with us, right?”, then when someone answers such a question with “Right,” and then when someone is giving instructions and says “Turn right at the next traffic lights.” If I have chosen my examples well, a native English speaker should recognise that in the first the voice rises, in the second it drops, and in the third it remains in “neutral”. But in an English sentence it is rare that the intonation of a single word will affect the meaning of that word, it is usually what is implied by the sentence which changes. In Monkolé the tone of a single word, or even a single syllable, is extremely important, as it can mark the difference between “house” and “robber”, “sun” and “smell”, “yesterday” and “parent-in-law”! The context will usually reveal which it should be – so if we as language learners can't hear the difference we will probably be able to guess it – but if we don't use the right tones when we speak we will be understood but probably laughed at!
Tenses don't really exist in Monkolé. Aspect is marked instead, which is whether an action is completed, continuous, habitual or potential. Words like “yesterday” or “now” are used to indicate when the action takes place.
When Monkolé is written it uses the international phonetic alphabet, but since I'm not sure I can use it on blogger, and you may not know how to read it, I am going to write approximate spellings using English sounds. I'm not marking the tones because there are so many of them and I'm not sure how to get all the accents I'd need!
Verbs aren't conjugated, instead small words are used before and after the verb to show what or who is the subject and/or object of that verb. There are several small suffixes such as -i or -u which do attach to the verb to indicate relationships like possession. So “ilaalu” is the king, “ile” is house, and “ilei ilaalu” is the king's house. But of course, if your voice goes down instead of up on the “e” of “ile” then you are actually saying “the king's robber”!
Some nouns are composite nouns. So “akoh” means car, but “akoh nla” (literally “big car”) means lorry, “akoh laylay” (“sky car”) is a plane and “akoh-i inyi” (“car of the water”) is a boat. A train however, is “pee-pah” … say it out loud if you can't work out why that should be!
Our textbook is a series of lessons produced by the missionary who originally analysed and wrote down the language, and who later translated the New Testament with a team of Monkolé speakers. The lessons are based around dialogues, which we read, repeat, try to understand, pick out grammar points, practise and replace words … and often we go off on sidetracks which mean that we discover even more vocabulary and helpful expressions. We study 3 hours every weekday morning, which would be a lot if it were just intensive language study, but we also take the opportunity to ask Abraham questions about life in the village (more posts to come about things we've found out!).
After six weeks of lessons we can construct simple sentences about everyday life, and understand them … if Abraham repeats them several times and slowly! We have the complaint of every language learner – people speak so fast in real life!! But we do have a feeling of satisfaction when Abraham arrives in the morning and we can greet him in Monkolé and pass on snippets of our news from the day before.
We are aware that we are extremely blessed to have Abraham as a language helper. He is intelligent, patient and very honest. He has a good sense of humour too, which is appreciated on days when we are feeling tired and befuddled!
We continue to be very grateful for Rachel, who looks after the boys while we are in lessons. She too is very patient, and Simon thinks she is wonderful! Benjy always looks very happy to see her too.
We have been studying Monkolé for six weeks. For those who are interested, it is a tonal language, with three distinct tones – rising, falling and flat. These correspond approximately to the tones used in English on the word 'right' in the following examples. Firstly, when someone wants to check they've understood and says, “You're coming with us, right?”, then when someone answers such a question with “Right,” and then when someone is giving instructions and says “Turn right at the next traffic lights.” If I have chosen my examples well, a native English speaker should recognise that in the first the voice rises, in the second it drops, and in the third it remains in “neutral”. But in an English sentence it is rare that the intonation of a single word will affect the meaning of that word, it is usually what is implied by the sentence which changes. In Monkolé the tone of a single word, or even a single syllable, is extremely important, as it can mark the difference between “house” and “robber”, “sun” and “smell”, “yesterday” and “parent-in-law”! The context will usually reveal which it should be – so if we as language learners can't hear the difference we will probably be able to guess it – but if we don't use the right tones when we speak we will be understood but probably laughed at!
Tenses don't really exist in Monkolé. Aspect is marked instead, which is whether an action is completed, continuous, habitual or potential. Words like “yesterday” or “now” are used to indicate when the action takes place.
When Monkolé is written it uses the international phonetic alphabet, but since I'm not sure I can use it on blogger, and you may not know how to read it, I am going to write approximate spellings using English sounds. I'm not marking the tones because there are so many of them and I'm not sure how to get all the accents I'd need!
Verbs aren't conjugated, instead small words are used before and after the verb to show what or who is the subject and/or object of that verb. There are several small suffixes such as -i or -u which do attach to the verb to indicate relationships like possession. So “ilaalu” is the king, “ile” is house, and “ilei ilaalu” is the king's house. But of course, if your voice goes down instead of up on the “e” of “ile” then you are actually saying “the king's robber”!
Some nouns are composite nouns. So “akoh” means car, but “akoh nla” (literally “big car”) means lorry, “akoh laylay” (“sky car”) is a plane and “akoh-i inyi” (“car of the water”) is a boat. A train however, is “pee-pah” … say it out loud if you can't work out why that should be!
Our textbook is a series of lessons produced by the missionary who originally analysed and wrote down the language, and who later translated the New Testament with a team of Monkolé speakers. The lessons are based around dialogues, which we read, repeat, try to understand, pick out grammar points, practise and replace words … and often we go off on sidetracks which mean that we discover even more vocabulary and helpful expressions. We study 3 hours every weekday morning, which would be a lot if it were just intensive language study, but we also take the opportunity to ask Abraham questions about life in the village (more posts to come about things we've found out!).
After six weeks of lessons we can construct simple sentences about everyday life, and understand them … if Abraham repeats them several times and slowly! We have the complaint of every language learner – people speak so fast in real life!! But we do have a feeling of satisfaction when Abraham arrives in the morning and we can greet him in Monkolé and pass on snippets of our news from the day before.
We are aware that we are extremely blessed to have Abraham as a language helper. He is intelligent, patient and very honest. He has a good sense of humour too, which is appreciated on days when we are feeling tired and befuddled!
We continue to be very grateful for Rachel, who looks after the boys while we are in lessons. She too is very patient, and Simon thinks she is wonderful! Benjy always looks very happy to see her too.
1 comment:
Hmmm... definitely swings and roundabouts. It's like "Good news / Bad news":
Good news! No need to learn different words for "boat" and "plane". Hooray!
Bad news! Tonal pronunciation.
Good news! No tenses. Hooray!
Bad news! Verbal aspect.
Sounds like fun. In a rather geeky masochistic sort of way...
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