Great piece of writing indeed.
This made my morning and now I understand why I spent 6 years in Arua and still
struggle to speak the language - confusion just that needs very meticulous
attention to detail and context even though I was from across the Lugbara
border in Kakwa land
Dr. Data Santorino
Lecturer Department of Pediatrics and Child Health
Mbarara University of Science and Technology
Uganda.
________________________________
From: Anyole J <anyo...@yahoo.ca>
To: George Afi Obitre-Gama <gobi...@yahoo.com>; A Virtual Network for friends
of West Nile <westnilenet@kym.net>; A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile
<westnilenet@kym.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 7:21 PM
Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] Learning the Lugbara Language - A bloggers 2 cents-a
good read!
This is a very interesting piece. It is always nice to see things from an
out-siders perspective and make sense of things we are usually oblivious to,
house-mouth, za-mva, et all!
The piece does bring out some things that worry anthropologist too, cultures
are gradually getting eroded "traditions have been changing here as the
pressure of our Western culture pervades and invades." as well, it high lights
some issues that continue to plague us, such as time keeping, which has itself
not been eroded by the same western culture.
Thanks for sharing this, it did make my day that more interesting, got me
thinking. One of these days, "I'll beat my vernacular teacher a phone"
Anyole
________________________________
From: George Afi Obitre-Gama <gobi...@yahoo.com>
To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <westnilenet@kym.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 4:12:31 AM
Subject: [WestNileNet] Learning the Lugbara Language - A bloggers 2 cents-a
good read!
A new year, a new language, more confusion
Why can't everyone speak English?
16.01.2013 30 °C
Learning a new language and culture is like discovering a new world, opening
your eyes and mind to completely amazing and strange ideas, some shocking, some
fascinating, most unexpected.
Since
the beginning of the new year, we have a new teacher, Eunice, who is hoping to
make us into fluent Lugbara speakers within a few months… Lugbara is the local
tribe in Arua, one of the 10 largest tribes in Uganda (out of a total of 34
ethnicities). The Lugbara are a tribe descended from Nigeria to settle here.
Their territory extends around Arua and into the Democratic Republic of Congo,
so families have been split by the arbitrary political boundaries drawn by the
Europeans in Berlin in 1884.
Disconcertingly, we seem to be a source of great amusement for most of the
ex-pats when we tell them we are taking this time to study Lugbara. “Good
luck”, they tell us. They then go on to tell you a story of someone who has
been attempting the language for many years and haven’t gotten very far. Some
compare the language to Chinese, saying it is one of the most difficult
languages in the world to
learn. It is quite depressing hearing this, obviously… Additionally, having
grown up in Congo and learning Swahili there, having lived in Malawi and Kenya
and trying to learn the languages there, while being exposed to various other
African languages, it is frustrating to have to start at zero like a baby once
again….those languages are nothing like Lugbara!
Most whites don’t even bother to learn Lugbara especially since this tribe is
only one of 5 in the close vicinity of one another. For example, the Alur are
settled on the outskirts of Arua town. Their language is close to the Luo
language which we were learning in Kenya. To make it even worse, there are
sub-sections of the Lugbara tribe with variations in the way words are said.
Whoopee to learning a difficult language which is only spoken by a few and
which is nothing like any other language we have ever heard!
Eunice, in action, confusing us
Eunice is a good teacher, though, having patience with us as we sit on the
veranda trying to repeat what on earth she has just said. As a Lugbara, she is
also good at turning up late, demonstrating how a Lugbara should act. As
Lilian, another Lugbara who works for us says, “Lugbaras is not following time,
ha!” and laughs out loud. So, anyway, she is almost an hour late today, but
since we live in Africa, you never know what may have happened. It could be a
relative has just died and she has to go to the funeral.
Despite the issue of time-keeping, which especially bothers Emma, Eunice has
been effective at moving us on in the language. Emma and I already feel more
confident using some simple phrases and greetings. For example, I was
particularly proud when I asked for 10 eggs the other day in the local wooden
duka
close to our
home. “Ife mani augbe mundri”. The word for egg 'augbe' is spoken as though
you are swallowing an egg...
One of the problems of learning Lugbara is that the same words can mean
completely different things. So, for instance, the word for sauce, “tibi”, is
the same word for ‘beard’, just with a different tone. Emma wonders if this has
anything to do with someone’s long beard dragging in their gravy once upon a
time. There are other examples, though the best so far is the word ‘ago’, which
if intonated differently, can either mean ‘husband’ or ‘pumpkin’. A phrase like
‘my beautiful fiancée’ can also come across as ‘my beautiful warthog’, so any
wannabe suitors need to be pretty careful in this town…
Emma also uses a lot of imagination when it comes to remembering the Lugbara
phrases or words. So, for instance, the word for peanuts is ‘funo’ (foon-oh).
Emma thinks of little peanuts bouncing around and having a lot of fun. It can
be a bit of a tentative or weird link at times. She is constantly whispering to
me how I can remember a word. Awupi (A-whoopee) is the word for Aunt on your
dad’s side. Obviously, this conjures up thoughts of playing a trick with my
Auntie Barbara with a whoopee cushion…’Fetaa’ (feta) means gift and so it is
remembered by thinking of giving someone a gift of cheese. I often wish I had
had Emma as a study partner for my IGCSE or IB exams in Holland as I would not
have spent so many lost hours staring blankly at walls trying to cram boring
information into my struggling mind.
Alongside Emma's visual mind, we are also discovering that Lugbara is quite a
visual language. The word for ‘fingers’, for example, is ‘hand-children’. This
also works for ‘toes’ (foot children). The word for door translates directly as
‘house-mouth’. The floor is the ‘house-stomach’. Today, we learnt that veranda
is the ‘joeti’ or ‘house buttocks’!! You can’t make this stuff up, eh? It’s
great!
Onomatopoeia is often used as well in the language. 'Kulukulu'
(koo-loo-koo-loo) is the name for a turkey and on hearing the sound a turkey
makes the other day when passing a homestead, I really thought it described it
well. Barking is ‘agbo-agbo’, crying is 'owu- owu' (oh-woo) and laughing is
'ogu- ogu' (oh-goo). I can’t remember any of these sound words properly and
instead guess by making any noise that I think would fit. It unfortunately
doesn’t work. One of our favourite onomatopoeiatic words is the word for
butterfly ‘alapapa’, just like the sound of little wings beating!
Language can also be an intimate doorway into the culture. We couldn’t believe
t, when Eunice explained the word for ‘girl’ is made up of 2 words in Lugbara,
‘za’ meaning ‘meat’ and ‘mva’ meaning ‘child’! 'Meat-child!' Girls have been
seen as great little earners in a family by providing a dowry of up to 20 head
of cattle and 15 goats and extras like bows and arrows and hoes.
However, so many of the traditions have been changing here as the pressure of
our Western culture pervades and invades. Loin cloths have been out since the
1950s or 60s (Maybe this is a good thing. I can’t see the Craig family
sauntering down the road semi-nude in Arua, and it would make an embarrassing
family photo). Instead, though, everyone is wearing second-hand Western
clothes. Out is the tradition to remove your 6 front teeth using only a hammer
and some herbs to encourage healing of your mouth afterwards (I’m also thankful
this is not practised anymore), and marking the skin by cuts with a razor in
adolescence is now stopped. However, as Eunice explained, the rather
exaggerated buttocks size in women is still favoured by the culture, especially
if the buttocks also jiggles while walking.
All-in-all, though pretty tiring, it is really interesting learning the
language and culture. It definitely does show how very different we Westerners
are (especially compared to the recent past) and so will help us understand how
to approach people more effectively. We are hoping knowledge of the language
can help us build relationships and get alongside people better (until we meet
others from the next tribe along who don’t have a clue what we are saying…).
Eunice, Lilian and all of us outside on the 'house-buttocks' in the
'house-mouth'
Amelie in the jokoni
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