Mikonai's Swahili Log

[mikonai]

Ok, I got my paper written and turned in. And it gave me an opportunity to find out how I deal with busy times and keeping up with language learning. The verdict: I did... eh. I kept up with my Anki reviews and Duo lessons, and over the week worked through one or two Living Language lessons. Over the weekend we had some heavy (and very wet and sticky) snow, so we actually lost power for almost all of Saturday and all of Sunday! We kept warm with fires in the fireplaces, and some passive heat from the woodburning furnace. But between the long hours of darkness, the inability to charge my electronics, and the whole family largely sitting around in the few warm rooms, it was difficult for me to either work on my paper or do much language studying!

But on the whole things could have gone worse. Ideally I would have been able to use these breaks to do more intensive study (and a more moderate amount of work/rest) but considering that I was crunching to meet a deadline I feel ok about the little bit I got done. And today, with some alone time and not a lot else to do, I got through another chunk of Assimil Swahili lessons. Depending on the subject matter, I sometimes look up about half the words in a lesson, or just one or two.

One lesson featured a saying printed on a kanga, and even the textbook explanation doesn't make the translation make sense:

Swahili: "Tangawizi ilikufa bure, mwenye viungo ni manjano."
French translation: "[Le] gingembre est mort pour rien, celui qui fair (celui ayant) la sauce (épices) [c'] est [le] curcuma."
French explanation: ce dicton signifie qu'il ne faut jamais se vanter de ce que l'on n'a pas fait car, si le curcuma, appelé communément faux safran, donne la couleur, c'est le gingembre qui donne le gout.

Two things are confusing me especially, on top of the fact that this is a proverb anyway:1. I feel like I'm missing some interpretation of "kufa bure" that fits better when talking about spices, but I haven't found anything else.2. I don't really get how the syntax of -enye works. I think it's a relative clause sort of marker? And it clearly takes agreement, but I'm not sure how it helps get to what I understand the French explanation to be (thanks google translate for helping me muddle by without knowing French!). If ginger is so important for a sauce's flavor, why did it die for nothing? I somewhat suspect that the explanation is off track, but also kanga sayings are notoriously difficult to parse anyway.



As I prepare to go into the new semester, I need to start paying special attention to my work and study routine. Academia has both a blessing and a curse where my schedule shifts every semester depending on what I'm teaching and what classes I'm taking, and so on. It's nice because I get to reset my routine pretty frequently, which is refreshing. But on the other hand... I have to reset my routine pretty frequently, with all of the effort involved, and the times spent "out of the groove" so to speak. So we'll see what routine I settle into this time!

[SGP]

Over the weekend we had some heavy (and very wet and sticky) snow, so we actually lost power for almost all of Saturday and all of Sunday! We kept warm with fires in the fireplaces, and some passive heat from the woodburning furnace. But between the long hours of darkness, the inability to charge my electronics, and the whole family largely sitting around in the few warm rooms, it was difficult for me to either work on my paper or do much language studying!

Snow causing power loss... that connection isn't the easiest to make for "us Westerners living in the West". Reminds me of not taking anything for granted, no matter where you are. And I am really glad that you have got warm rooms and fire-making opportunities.

One lesson featured a saying printed on a kanga, and even the textbook explanation doesn't make the translation make sense:

Swahili: "Tangawizi ilikufa bure, mwenye viungo ni manjano."
French translation: "[Le] gingembre est mort pour rien, celui qui fair (celui ayant) la sauce (épices) [c'] est [le] curcuma."
French explanation: ce dicton signifie qu'il ne faut jamais se vanter de ce que l'on n'a pas fait car, si le curcuma, appelé communément faux safran, donne la couleur, c'est le gingembre qui donne le gout.

Two things are confusing me especially, on top of the fact that this is a proverb anyway:1. I feel like I'm missing some interpretation of "kufa bure" that fits better when talking about spices, but I haven't found anything else.

-kufa is "to die", also used as a metaphor. But as for "bure", it has several meanings. Like:
(1) in vain
(2) for free
(3) fruitlessly
(4) without reason, without cause

Manjano means yellow (-njano), and also (!) turmeric.

I don't know what the interpretation of this proverb really is. But still... ginger could, e.g., either die fruitlessly (i.e. without having fulfilled its purpose), or without a reason (while fully having fulfilled its purpose, but people wouldn't care about it, or wouldn't realize it, etc.).

Not sure if their French explanation is fully in accordance with the proverb's meaning. Nevertheless, attempting to clarify their very explanation right now some more. Maybe it becomes fully to clear to you after reading that partially drawn picture of mine... who knows?

First part (translation, not without adding some color-coding that could reveal what they are talking about. However, they still might be talking about something entirely different instead...):

Nobody shoulda be braggin because of anyting he nah do. Now why do we seh so?
Because dere be a spice, it be called di false saffron. Now da's di turmeric. It mek tings yellow.
But di ginga mek diffarent contribushon. It a-cause di food to be tasty, y'know.
So one a-dem be providin di color. And di other one be providin di taste.

Second part (two possible explanations of their French explanation ):

(1) Even if yuh do one good ting, yuh still nah got any reason fi [= to] brag. Because yuh do one good ting, okeh. But another person do another good ting. Like di turmeric providin di color, and di ginga providin di taste. None a-dem spices be boastin bout also havin done di job of di other one. Neither should yuh be boastin bout havin done anyting yuh simply nah do, mon!

(2) Yuh cyan't exceed yuh limitashons. Ginga nah be mekin di food yellow. Inna di sem weh, yuh nah be mekin di mountains scatter, yuh nah be able fi fly like a bird, and yuh nah be di most big big boss [sic] inna di world. So yuh betta keep ya mout shut instead of bein a giant show-off.

2. I don't really get how the syntax of -enye works. I think it's a relative clause sort of marker? And it clearly takes agreement, but I'm not sure how it helps get to what I understand the French explanation to be (thanks google translate for helping me muddle by without knowing French!).

-enye examples:
-enye nguvu: powerful. Literally: possessing power (nguvu).

watu wenye nguvu
Literally: Humans of-possessing power.
Powerful / strong humans.

mtu mwenye nguvu.
Same example, but singular.

[mikonai]

Whoops, I meant to post an update last week and I never got around to it! This bodes... somewhat poorly for keeping track of my language learning this semester.

Last week on the whole I think I did ok. Most days I kept up with Anki and doing an Assimil lesson, but I didn't manage to carve out much more time than that. This week I'm running a bit behind, so I'll have more catching up to do... But I'm at least making progress, albeit very slow progress.