It's all in the tone!

First, some interesting facts about Nigerian Languages…..There are over 520 languages of them! Only Indonesia and Papua New Guinea have more. Over 1/4 of all African languages are spoken in Nigeria.  Hausa is spoken as a first language by over 25 million people, and as the second by a further 18 million.  (If you are interested to see where your language falls in the world rankings check out Ethnologue's website.) It is not surprising therefore that most Nigerians in addition to their own native tongue and English, speak or understand at least one other of their country’s languages. The languages with the most speakers are Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo.

All Nigerian languages are tonal. Yoruba, I am told, is amongst the most tonal languages in the world. For adult language learners tones can be difficult to master: the subtle rise and falls, the multitude of alterations to vowel sounds that tones make,  often sound very strange compared to the syllabic stress patterns of English. But as I found out last week, even native Nigerians have difficulty.

Last week one of my colleagues, A, was on the phone talking to someone in Igbo, not his native tongue, not even his second languages, actually more like his 4th after English. Next thing I knew my other colleague, F, sitting on the desk between A and me burst out laughing. It turns out A had fallen foul of a classic tonal pattern mishap, which in English sounds really unfortunately funny. He had meant to say Bawo ni isé? (Note the rising tone accent on the final 'e' which has nothing to do with the fact that it is a question, and which translates as How is work? But he had said Bawo ni ìsé ? (Note the additional falling tone on the initial 'i' of the final word) and this means How is poverty?  What a faux pas!

What’s the buzzz this morning? A “måhu-rå båsa”

This morning I go out to join my landlady Sushila and her daughter and our sabzi walla on the front porch to  be met with “ssh, aså. måhu dekhå, aså aså”  ssh, “come, look at the honey bees”.
Overnight our house has a  new addition, the busy bees have built a nest! The hive or “ båsa” is probably about 2 ft across hanging from  the underside of our under construction upper floor roof. Seemingly they were swarming all around when Sushila  first go it up this morning but have settle down now.
I wonder how big it will get, and how long it will stay?

Rodent alarm clock – dhamana!

Today has been a bit of a wildlife day. First I was woken up just before 5AM this morning with a noise really quite close to my head – it sounded like something rummaging at the corner of my mosquito net. In a half asleep daze I am waving it away with my hand. I’m sort of only half awake and thinking it is probably Fred (the resident gecko!) when the noise becomes more of a scurrying , clearly a bigger animal, and I realise I must have a rodent in the bedroom. I get up, switch on the light  and sure enough I find a rat sitting on the bedroom shelves. 
I chase it out of the bedroom, trying to watch where it heads for,  ie how it got in, but I loose it in the dark in the kitchen. Once the kitchen light is on I check the sink plumbing. You will remember this was the way they were getting in last year. My landlord had put in a cover thinking it would cure the problem and I dispensed with my make shift rat stop of a piece of marble and slab of cement. Well this musa had worked the cover loose!  So after a good check that it wasn’t still in the house, it was back down with the marble and cement blocks.
Later this morning in the office there was much asa, asa – come ,come – with a ssh sshh do it quietly. There outside the window of our Accounts room was a snake. Only a couple of days before a cobra ( in Oriya “naga”)  had been found in Mr P’s brother’s house, squirming about by the cooking gas cylinder in the kitchen – deadly! Luckily the adults of the house saw it and none of the small children were about. So Mr G, who manages our old  age home was summoned. Seemingly he is an ace snake catcher! I missed all that excitement and when I was told the story yesterday I had mentioned that I had never seen a snake in the wild. Much bemused looks and then the questions “you don’t have snakes in your country?” 
So today when someone noticed this one in the grass outside the office Mr R came to tell me about it so I could see a snake! Not a deadly one,  but about 6 foot long and the thickness of my forearm.  The name for this one in Oriya is “dhamana”: and after investigating a bit on the web I find it is a fairly common Rat Snake which must have a field day in our nagar with all the rats and toads we have.
After it disappeared back into the shrubbery and undergrowth, then all the snake stories started to come out. It appears that on 2 occasions a cobra has actually come into the office building through the front door! Actually there are lots of snakes in the nagar even though it is getting to be a built up area it wasn’t always and there are regular sightings.  I just have never seen any. Part of me wants to and part of me doesn’t  - this is as close to one as I really want to be to any snake. Another Indian experience ticked off the list! I’m just glad my wake up call this morning was of the rodent rather than reptilian variety!

It’s a dog eat dog world…

WARNING!!
This post is not for the faint hearted. Animal lovers be warned!!

*****************************************************************************************
Our nagar, like everywhere in India is full of dogs. Some are actually owned and taken care of by people who live here, others are owned but not taken care of, others are not owned at all.

Sometimes you see them lazing around in the heat, all of them seem to love the piles of builders sand which are to be found everywhere with all the building work that is going on. Other times they are nose down sniffing out food or some scent, scurrying over whenever kitchen waste is thrown out: they are part of the local waste disposal system. At other times they can be running in packs, and howling their heads off.  Mostly they look healthy, but that’s because you don’t usually see the unhealthy ones. I recall a bitch who can to rest in a quite spot by H’s stairwell in Koraput last year around this time, we think she had been attacked by a gang of dogs and was in pretty bad shape, bleeding and festering. At home, you’d take it to a vet and get it put down. Here what can you do? 
Ex-volunteer AM adopted a street dog in Bhubaneswar as a pup and after vet visits, inoculations and a long flight, JB now has a new home in Canada. Lucky lad!  See JB the wonder dog!
(That was the  nice part!)

REPEAT WARNING!!
This post is not for the faint hearted. Animal lovers be warned!!

About a month back, we had a small pup find its way to my landlady’s house, it was tiny and not eating well and not growing. We have no idea where it came from, but it sort of tried to adopt her house as a safe haven. She started to feed it. But the bigger dogs in the neighbouring houses would steal its food. It clearly had lost its mother very young, been thrown out of the nest so to speak, and had not learnt how to interact with other dogs.  In the morning as I left for work it would always try and follow me, and I’d pick it up and turn it back to the house. Over the weeks it was becoming a little more energetic but still it was small for its age, and it was still whimpering every time we would leave the  house.
By this time it could still get under our gate and so escape the chasing from the neighbours dogs who were now all too big to get through. Then the week before  last it started to follow me to work again. Knowing that my landlady had told me only the day before that she had had to chase the neighbour dogs away to get them of it, I lifted him up and turned him back quite assertively so he wouldn’t follow. I walked off as he slumped back to the house. Just up the lane before the corner I looked back to see him beginning to wonder along the lane again. Next thing I knew there was much growling and squeaking, then screams from the young girl who lives in the house across from us. I was too far away to help. The whole story came to light when I got home in the evening. The 3 big dogs, a mother and two of her pups now grown, had begun to chase the small dog.   She had tried to chase them away, by “nicely throwing stones”, then more seriously throwing stones, but to no avail. The little pup stood no chance. he didn’t know how to play., he didn’t know how to say “I’m no threat, you are pack leader” and their biting took on grave consequences.  The smell of the carcass permeated the whole nagar for some days. The pups tore the small carcass to pieces. The smell brought all the big dogs around,  but interestingly none of them devoured the meat. I saw them approach, nose alert, pups barking, trying to stand their ground, but backing off in the face of the elder dogs. They approached, sniffed the carcass, looked at the pups, yelped, and wondered off. By this point I had my camera out…….

View Full Album

Getting tongue tied over dogs and cucumbers!

Speaking is always so much easier in one’s own mother tongue! Oh yeah? Even there one can make mistakes – English has its Spoonerisms  accidental or deliberate such as saying “A well-boiled icicle"  instead of “ A well-oiled bicycle” .  The deliberate form of this is much used in our humour and to write  such comical turns actually requires a considerable amount of linguistic knowledge.  The English comic Les Dawson had this character who played the piano atrociously: to pull this off as a comedic act actually takes true skill on the piano, hammering just any note in any sequence just doesn’t work, the tune has to be recognisable whilst being as far off key for it to not be – a delicate balancing act! And so it is with intentional word plays. But for us students of a new language it is the unintentional that can often be funny.

I always think that it is my responsibility to understand someone when they are trying to learn and trying to speak my language. In India there are some common mistakes people seem to make when learning English. It got me wondering what the common mistakes are for an English person learning Oriya, Hindi, French, Arabic, Chinese or any other language? Or for say a French native speaker learning Hindi?  Does a French person make the same mistakes as an English person? Does a Chinese? We have a number of Filipino volunteers in India for many English is at least a second language. Are their common mistakes in Hindi or Oriya  the same as mine?  I don’t know. So if there are any linguists and language teachers reading this, or if your mother tongue is something other than English,  how about providing some insight into this question?

Here are some that I have noticed

• clothes and cloths – everybody wears cloths,  no one uses clothes!
• the wind blows as if it were a winding path!
• “How will we do this?” becomes “How we will do this?”

And my classic in Oriya is getting tongue tied on kukura and kakuri, and probably loads more besides that no one has yet corrected me on :)

Flashing Oriya

Flash cards are really useful language learning aid and for ages I wrote them out by hand on pieces of card the size of business cards, actually I used old business cards from previous jobs until I have none left :)  then I discovered Anki. Online, free, software for developing and sharing sets of flashcards (in Anki speak decks). It works really well. ( I am not getting paid for this plug!) It is easy to use and it does what it says it does! In my book that makes it an ace piece of software.
Download the software from the Anki site. If you are lucky enough to be studying a language which is popular (e.g. French, Spanish)  then you may  find there are already decks you can download, edit and use. Anki also support Japanese and other characters sets. I have no experience of using these. There are some Youtube videos on how to use Anki
The basic principle is simple, you make one side of the flash card in your native language (in my case English) and the other side in the language you are learning. As you go through your deck, some words/phrases will stick, they will seem easy to remember, other will prove more difficult. Anki provides a choice of times to see the card again – after only a short interval for a word you either didn’t know or found hard to recall, on a scale through to a more distant time for one you found easy. As you continue through encountering words for the subsequent times the intervals get longer.
There are controls for setting the intervals, the number of cards reviewed each day – best do a small amount regularly is the recognised advice – and settings for many more things. To be honest I haven't explored that many as it is so intuitive to use “out of the box”, but clearly others have – you can even add audio to your flash card.
So much for the software. Inevitably there were no Oriya decks! Surprise, surprise! So I have started going through Niels Erik Wegge’s Oriya in Small Bites book and making up some decks. I reviewed his book on Good Reads. At the time of writing this post there are 2 decks loaded on AnkiWeb, and a third waiting in the wings with vocabulary I have picked up whilst here in Orissa. My plan is to continue through Wegge’s book, and adding in further words and phrases as I hear them. The decks are based on the exercises in the book but have some of my own examples added in. Inevitably there will be mistakes – typos, pronunciation errors, syntax and grammar errors, and probably the odd misunderstanding of meaning for which I accept full responsibility.
Please let me know if you use the decks, if they are useful and if you find any errors. I shall be happy to correct. Also if you are learning Oriya and make your own deck please let me know and share via Anki. Finally Anki remove decks if not used in 3 months, so if you find they have disappeared and would like them just drop me a message and I will re-upload.

Deep River by Shusaku Endo

part of my Indian Literature series

The author 

Shusaku Endo (1923 – 1996) was a highly acclaimed Japanese novelist who belonged to the Christian faith and was therefore in a member of a minority in Japan. His writings are all a vehicle for his faith, but even if you are not a believer, his writings in my opinion are always compelling reads, touching pieces of great sincerity and insight into the human condition.

The Book

Deep River (1993) by Shusako Endo

 

My Review

Just as tributaries of a river converge into one , so Endo brings together the spiritual journeys of 4 Japanese tourists as they undertake a tour of India in the last days of the reign of Indira Gandhi.

Numada grew up as a boy in Japanese occupied Manchuria until his parents separation meant his return to Japan. His boyhood love for the puppy he had to leave behind turns him into a writer of stories in which children communicate with animals. In later life he survives heart stopping surgery at the same time as his beloved minor bird dies. SPOLIER - His visit to India culminates in him buying and freeing a minor bird there in gratitude

Kikuchi’s story of how he survives WW2 retreat of the Japanese Army from Burma along the Road of Death thanks only to the actions of a comrade in arms makes quite an impact on the reader. In a mistaken understanding that India is mainly Buddhist, he wants to perform some Buddhist rituals for his fallen comrades and for their enemies because this comrade’s actions had haunted the comrade all his life, leading to alcohol abuse, hospitalization and his eventual death. But not before he received comfort from a European Christian volunteer at the hospital.

Izube’s wife has recently died of cancer. He’s a typical middle class Japanese manager. Throughout his marriage ha has taken his wife for granted and is surprised by her passionate deathbed plea that he re-find her when she is reborn It is this search that takes him to India. His search takes him to remote Indian villages, beggar children and fortune telling charlatans.

Mitsuko thinks she is incapable of loving another. At college she rebelled and led a wild life and now has a failed marriage behind her. At collage she goaded on a young naive boy, Otsu, who she seduces. Otsu is deeply religious and Mitsuko tries to break his attachment to his faith. She fails and he enters the training for the priesthood in France. She encounters him again there during her own honeymoon, and again years later in Varanasi on her India trip. He has been flung out of the seminary for his radical belief in an Asian Christianity but is still strong in his faith and works to ferry the bodies of the dead who have no money to the river and the still living, but dying to the free guest houses of the town where Hindus come for rebirth.

SPOILER - Their stories are tied together by the trip, which comes to its finale through the silly actions of their fellow traveller Sanjo, a young photographer. With backdrop of the murder of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, the tensions of multiple faiths, languages and cultures clash in India itself and within the tourist group. By their actual journey and their spiritual one, each of the book’s characters confront the ambiguities that are Indian culture, its castes and its religious believes, its perception that good and evil are intimately intertwined just as the dead bodies flowing in the Ganges are part and parcel of the same belief system that has people washing on its banks in the hope of rebirth. Each character in their own way finds a moment of epiphany along the banks of the sacred river.

A satisfyingly spiritual read.

Nightly English practice advances forward one question at a time

If I walk home from the office any time between 5 and 6PM when it is still light I am met en route by a bunch of the nagar’s kids. They seem to spot me from a long way off and then all I hear is my name resounding and lots of running feet. The oldest goes to tuition between 6 and 8PM in addition to a  full school day and the youngest is a toddler of preschool age. There’s usually about 6 of them, all keen to practice their English with pre-rehearsed questions “What is your father’s name?” “What is your mother’s name?” “What is your grandfather’s name?” “What is your grandmother’s name?” “What are your sisters names?” “What are you brothers’ names?”   I have  to remember what I have made up and keep consistent. Early on, after the look of complete bewilderment when I said I did not have children, I became never married – just an easier explanation all round! I also invented brothers and sisters, just to give them answers to their questions. So now I have to remember that my brother in law and sister in law are now my brother and sister, my best friends are now my second brother and sister etc.
Every time it is the same questions! Nice as it is it does get monotonous! But they all get to ask and are all answered. Then just when you least expect it, Vikram inserted a new one tonight “What is your favourite game?”  Stopped me in my tracks it did and I had to think fast – playing cards was the decided upon answer – pretty safe, known in India. Received with head wobbles of agreement. Theirs? well of course cricket for the boys and badminton for the girls.  I’m taking guesses on the next question, when it will arrive and who will ask it!

Rajasthan (21) – The Birds of Bikaner

When we were in Bikaner in December one of the highlights of the trip turned out  to be our wildlife expedition. Jitu, the man in whose guest house we were staying is a zoologist by training and a great lover of nature. He is very knowledgeable about the local flora and fauna and we took a trip out of town with fingers crossed to see something. We headed towards the local dumping area and caught sight of a tremendous show of vultures and one antelope.
My friend Ken would have loved this and truly been in his element and I am sure he can probably help out here with proper identification – but I am thinking the blue bird above is a Kingfisher, the smaller black and white ones are starlings, and the larger ones vultures and buzzards.  This was truly a spectacular sight – hundred of these very big birds on the ground and in flight. Pictures of bird are difficult, and with no telephoto lens and certainly no steady hand these are the best I have but I hope you can get the flavour of this memorable occasion with these and the video.
           

Rajasthan (20) – Nation Research Centre on the Camel

We took a trip out from Bikaner to the National Research Centre on the Camel, indulging my fondness for these beasts. We arrived just as the adult females were being fed and watered, which meant that we saw the young feeding from their mothers and the staff collecting some of the milk as well. This goes for sale at the centre, but by the time I made it to the stall all the milk was gone, but I did have some ice cream made with camel milk, lovely!

        

More Tagore

part of my series on Indian Literature

I  am becoming absolutely enthralled by the writing of Rabindranath Tagore. It is having much the same effect on me as reading  Pablo Coelho when I first encountered him.

My slow tasting of his The Crescent Moon continues. I have just read a half dozen or so passages which I most ardently recommend any parent to read. They simply ooze parental love.  Here is just one.

 Photo: Bozo fisherman and child, Mali 2006.

When and Why

WHEN I bring you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints--when I give coloured toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance, I truly know why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth--when I sing to make you dance.
When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands, I know why there is honey in the cup of the flower, and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice--when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.
When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight the summer breeze brings to my body--when I kiss you to make you smile.

I just love the way he uses nature to explain love – the simple, spiritual ties that bind Man to Earth, parent to child.

aji chuti åchi – Yipee!

Aji chuti åchi. Mu ghåre. Aji morå blog oriya lekhibi! Kånåpai? Kårånå mu kuch oriya sikhiba-ku chesta kåruchi.
Aji såkalå, mu deri soili. Mu nåta bele otili - a real treat!


Pråthåmå mu gåram pani-sangare gaåde. – treat number 2! Kintu pråthåmå mu pani boil karichi. Bahut kamå. Tinita panfulls , kafi åchi. Garam pani – bhåla sundar! 

Mu gaåduchi kebe R ( mora landlady-rå jhiå) bell karuchi! Se mote kåle se cycle-re dokan-ku jibi. Ah ha, mu bhabuchi R-rå chocolate dårkar! Mo-pakhåre morå shopping list achi – khirå, åda, råsunå, fruit juice, sirka. Me eha likhichi.

Mu diuta chocolate list-ku add kåruchi – gote mo-pai, gote R-pai.

Mu sabzi walla sune “påriba, påriba”. Se aur morå landlady (Sushila) baha-re ghar båsuchanti. Påriba åchi – mooli aur phulågobi. Gåtå kali, aji, asånta kali phulågobi aur mooli åchi! Sabu dinå phulågobi aur mooli ! Keteta phulågobi khåna? Sabu January! Phulågobi season åchi! Stop jåldi :)
  
Ebe, chai aur bhåla båhi  until it is time for dinner :)