“Kwankwa” (Language) 23 June 2015

       I know today is the end of my 1st year of teaching, and by the end of the week I’d have left the Pacific NW for 1 year. I’ve graded 195 finals to finish the 2^nd semester of the 2007 Ethiopian calendar year. There is a stack of data on my table some telling me 98.5% of students in one class passed and out of all my students about 70% passed and what was the percent of improvement in all classes based on gender.  After 15 days I get to see my 2 wonderful parents. I should be talking about numbers, but all I really want to talk about is talking.

      This evening while I was walking to my favorite “shai bet” (tea house), I was called over by a group of teachers (“mimheran”). Three of them teach at the preparatory school and two are secondary. They range in age, height and subjects, but all are extremely nice. I joined them.

      Now when you “join” a group in the states, you just walk up, say “Hey!” and take a seat. Not here. Here, you have to say “Good (morning, afternoon, evening)” according to gender and status while shaking everyone’s hands. For example “Kamay hiderki” is for a single female while “Kamay hiderkin” is for plural women or an elderly/respected woman. “Kamay hiderka” is for a single man and “Kamay hiderkum” for plural men or an elderly/respected man. All just to say “Good morning.”

      This was one topic the teachers and I covered today and often on others. Which language is “richer” English or Tigrigna? They claimed that English is richer with more words than Tigrigna is. To an extent I believe them. If I point to a bird in the sky and ask what it is (“Entai, Intai izi?”)  the answer will be “iff” or bird. If I ask what kind of “iff” it is, I get either large (“abi”) or small (“nistay”). They don’t distinguish between a hawk or raven. Their language, in that regard, is limited; however, as illustrated before, the congegating of verbs is varied to show respect. As the vice-director from secondary school pointed out, “You know in America they speak informally so the words seem less (fewer) and less important.” My response of “Yep!” illustrated his point.

      The most common topic to talk about when I sit down and start speaking Tigrigna is to compare me to my sitemates. Stephanie (G10 Health) and Gina (G10 Agriculture) got to site three months before I did. Stephanie is a very outgoing, people-oriented, “go ahead and try new things” type of person. She’s great at Tigrigna. I hear about this every time I sit with certain people “Stephanie can talk fluently at market,” one teacher bragged today, “She talks very much, but Jessie talks little.” This always stings slightly, particularly when the person doesn’t try to speak to me in Tigrigna or has never seen me at market. However, today one of the teachers there knows that I can carry on conversations at market and school in Tigrigna and stuck up for me. All teachers than got into a discussion about the Tigrigna rank of all of us Peace Corps volunteers.

      The strange thing is that I understood everything they are saying. Sure, verbs are still hard to get perfect, but boy can I talk about my parents coming, clarify instructions for students and spend too much time at market talking to people. I wish I knew the studies for listening and speaking skills in language development, but I’d bet the first develops quicker than the second. Comparisons are always easy to form and give order to things. However, it’s also important to realize that some listen more than talk (my strategy here). This was very apparent on the finals that I graded. I had many students who rarely speak English in class, but they could read and comprehend and do remarkably well. I had students who speak all the time in class (most of the time on topic), yet do poorly on the test. All skills are important to realize and value. I can read and write Tigrigna that Stephanie can’t do, but few people ever see that. Different people have different skills so we shouldn’t compare them on incomplete basis. 

      As we were sitting outside on plastic blue chairs, we had a great view of the main road where kids play, adults pass and sheep try to get through the fence. I was shocked when teachers started yelling “Ra” (with a rolling rrrrrrr) and throwing stones at something behind me. Looking over my shoulder I realized they were yelling at the sheep and lamb that had come to chew on a plant. I repeated back the word to make sure I’d heard it correctly and was promptly told, “That’s to tell a sheep to go. Like “kid/kidi” for humans.”

They then went through all the animals and how to tell them to go. Donkeys, sheep, chickens, cats, dogs, goats and camels all have different sounds to make them leave. It’s kind of like saying “shoo” to a dog, but “go” to a child, but kicked up a notch. While dogs have the same word for come (“niinee/niina”) as humans, the other animals vary as well.

By the end we were all laughing. Partially at me trying to repeat all the different sounds and partially due to the realization that language is odd. This is something I’ve come across multiple times. When I ask people question about their own language’s oddities, they just laugh at the realization that they never thought of it before. This happened during the body part lesson. I asked students, if “af” means “mouth,” and “afinchaw” means “nose,” what does that “inchaw” mean? Another was when students defined “knee” as “birki” and “elbow” as “birki id” (knee of the arm). Why wasn’t it distinguished as “birki agree (leg)” then? Sometimes to lighten the mood I ask what “clap” is in Tigrigna (“chim chaw”) and then ask what “snap” is. There isn’t a separate word, though most people don’t realize that until you ask them.

This brings up two points. First, again, language is odd. This is a struggle for anyone learning a language and trying to be satisfied with a quick formula like in math class. My students were always quick to make me realize this in class. What is the difference between “but” and “however” to change one from being used in complex and the other in compound sentences? In Tigrigna there is only one word.  Why does “choose” change to “chose” in past tense instead of just adding a d for “choosed”? In the sentence “The phone rang _____ I was getting home” is the answer a.) when or b) while? Some things you just have to take as odd but the way it is. Second, native speakers don’t realize natural habits. They don’t think about there needing to be different words to distinguish large birds or how verb endings can be tricky for a foreigner. They don’t think about how an accent will change the same letters to make a completely different word. They don’t think about the oddities as being odd.

My largest battle this year was reconciling these two points for my students. They are used to being taught language – especially grammar – in formula forms. Teacher says, “What is the formula for simple past” and the students answer, “Subject plus verb 2 plus object.” While this may be handy to help students learn the different verb tenses, it does little to actually apply to real life. Students often leave off –ing endings (Where are you go?) or keep the order like in Tigrigna with the verb always at the end (I banana eat.) I had to start with the basic, the regulars, and make sure they got those before moving onto the irregulars. I have to make it really clear that some things just come naturally without much reasoning. We say “I want to eat.”, but “I like running.” Why are some verbs followed by an infinitive and others verb-ing? Language is odd, and needs to be recognized by teacher and student if any learning is going to happen.

In all the oddities between languages there are similarities. As the teachers pointed out about the animals going through the fence there is a different word for “sheep” (bagii) and “lamb” (rayma). Baby animals often have different names than the adult versions. Nationalities are often changing the ending of the countries name. I am an American or “Americawiit” (female version). There is a common way to pluralize nouns (English: add –s/-es. Tigrigna: add –tat), but there are exceptions to this rule for no real apparent reason. Maybe we aren’t all that odd after all.      

I love speaking Tigrigna. I go to my favorite shai bet because my sister (“zahaftay”) works there and only speaks Tigrigna. We have so much fun trying to tell each other about our days and what is happening with families. She lets me try out Tigrigna and I listen to her English. I love listening to my students and friends struggle to get through a thought in English. Some of my obnoxious boys in the classroom are the best to walk home with after as they try English in new ways. I love opening a book and being able to read all the combinations of 26 latin letters, though try to sound out all the Tigrigna I come across. I love trying to write the new words with the correct fidel alphabet even though many of the sounds are very similar.

Language is a complex, confusing, odd, delightful tool. We can express who we are and what we believe through various forms of it (writing, speaking) and absorb it in others (listening and reading). Individuality is possible through communication. What’s important is that we laugh at the oddity, battle the irregulars, and never let it become a barrier in relationships.