Always Learning

Now that we no longer have official Swahili classes, things in the language learning department are starting to look a lot more varied amongst the different people on my team. All of us are learning just be being, by talking with people and by trying to listen in on other people’s conversations, but, because the Swahili here is so rough – imagine trying to learn “grammatical” English from someone in the deep south, or from a recent immigrant who has constantly been surrounded by other recent immigrants – we’re also doing a lot of independent study.

We have a couple of Swahili Bibles, a first and second grade Swahili textbook, and an English-Swahili Swahili-English dictionary that is getting well worn around the edges. We’re constantly being told that Swahili is not a “rich” language, like English is, and it’s true. It was invented to be used as a trade language, and, even still, it lacks the depth and variety of vocabulary that is really needed to talk about anything other than matter of fact daily events.

There are very few – relatively speaking – adverbs or adjectives in the language. For instance, the word –kali can mean loud, hot, spicy, bitter, fierce, harsh, and probably several other things that we haven’t run into yet. That…can lead to some interesting translation issues. (There is gate down the road from us that is painted with the words, “Mbwa kali” – fierce dog – but the “translation” into English painted below it says, “Hot dog.” Oops. Lol!)

Even still, though, there are tons of words that we don’t know. Every once in a while, someone will pop out with a sentence where, although you understand all of the grammar, there is not a single actual word that you recognize. At which point, you stare blankly; the repeat themselves; you continue to stare blankly, and…the conversation lapses into English as they try to explain what they just said.

It’s amazing to me the amount of information that can be crammed into a single word. For instance, walioitafuta means “they who searched for it” and walipomwendea means “when they went to him.”

Wa-li-o-i-tafut-a = noun prefix for 3^rd person plural-past tense prefix-emphasis marker meaning “who”-object marker for “it”-verb stem “search”-verb cap

Wa-li-po-mw-end-e-a = noun prefix for 3^rd person plural-past tense prefix-time marker for “when”-object marker for 3^rd person singular-verb stem “go”-passive tense suffix “for or “to”-verb cap

Yep. And, almost all of those pieces, plus every other part of speech, change depending on the noun class you are in and whether a word is singular or plural. (And there are twelve noun classes!) At least the rules always apply – unlike English! Lol.