While reading a book about language last night, I recalled learning in a sociology class that Eskimoes had several different words for snow - each describing a specific condition. This fact was told to us to introduce the concept of linguistic relativism. This lead me to then wonder how many synonyms Micronesians have for the word quickly.
Micronesians are not known for their sense of urgency. “Island time” is the common term used. It is a frustration shared by many ex-pats tasked with the challenge of professionalizing the workforce and aiding in the country’s development.
In English I might use the words speedily, hurriedly, quickly, urgently, rapidly, swiftly, or hastily. I might even borrow foreign words and phrases that have become part of our language such as pronto or post haste. I might even use the acronym ASAP.
I asked a Pohnpein how many words they have for 'quickly'. She could only think of one but she did add that their language structure allows for descriptive to be added to the beginning or ending of a word but I’m not sure if she just meant that they could say quick, quicker, and quickest.
Kosrae is another island/language in the FSM. It is smaller than Pohnpei and has a longer history of interaction with traders and missionaries. A Kosraen I asked knew of three words for quickly in her language.
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I am aware of a couple words in Kosraean. The primary word used is suhlaklak (suh-lek-lahk) for "do it faster" or "come more quickly." "Koal" (kell) has the meaning closer to "now" but with a connotation of being later than "right now" so to speak.
ReplyDeleteIn Pohnpei there are situations that command speed. When you are called by title to the ngarangar (kohwa) in the nahs you must move with all haste to receive the cup. Sukusuk for the traditional leader must also be done quickly.
Ever thought about being part of the problem,people come to the islands , know everything and than leave and someone else is taking their place.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think people feel to get insulted by someone who is just passing by???
There are lots of problems here, but there is a lot of shit happening in the western world as well.Youare insulting somebodys home!!!!
I'm enjoying your blog, which Wenonoa recommended to me, and the first entry is quite dear to my heart, because I heard the same story about Eskimoes (sic) myself when I was growing up. You'll enjoy reading G. K. Pullum's riposte in the essay that gave him his book title: "The Great Eskimo [sic] Vocabulary Hoax." If I'm there in the fall, I'll bring it with me. Apropos of time, last year at the TESOL convention in Denver, an American who had spent several years teaching English in Indonesia announced at a session that the lack of a past tense in Bhasa Indonesia coupled with frequent student tardiness and the apparent inability of Indonesians to mark the "past tense" in [on?] verbs when they spoke English "proved" that Indonesians had no sense of time. Wanting to be polite, I did not fall on the floor in a paroxysm of laughter, but during Q & A I noted that in a museum I visited in Malaysia there were tons of historical displays, with the Bhasa Malay text translated quite effectively into English. (Bhasa Malay and Bhasa Indonesia are very similar syntactically and share a large vocabulary in common, so that a general observation about one might be expected to hold in the other.) Afterward, an Indonesian teacher of English in the audience thanked me for my comments, adding that many young people would probably rather be doing almost anything but sitting in a classroom. (With the wonderful pictures of life in Micronesia that you've posted so far, I wouldn't be surprised if students there would rather be in the water than in a classroom. If it were possible to hold English classes in snorkeling or scuba attire, I bet everyone would arrive a half hour early and quickly become fluent in English. Ah, maybe we should teach our students ASL. There's a thought.) And, while I'm on the topic, it just so happens I was reading only two days ago in a monograph on science fiction a quote from John Mbiti that Africans had "no future" in their languages and thus lacked any Western "linear concept of time." Intrigued because it was such an improbable notion, I picked up a copy of J. K. Adjaye's book "Time in the Black Experience," in which he and nine other linguists soundly refuted Mbiti's assertion. Mbiti was speaking of his own language group of 10 or 12 languages in his part of Africa, but given the 1,000 languages of sub-Saharan Africa and the tradition of "voodoo" among some West Africans and some peoples of the Caribbean--voodoo being in part a form of prediction of future events--I was initially skeptical; Adjaye and his fellow scholars concur. (Perhaps Mbiti, writing in the 1960s, felt that Black Africans just had no future?) Finally--and I'm assuming you have the time--I lived in the high-desert area of Pocatello, Idaho for four years just recently, and white people there commented on local Native American tardiness in respect to white folks' "clock" time, saying the Shoshone and Bannock were on "reservation time"; a Shoshone elder told me in contrast that tribal members are quite punctual when it comes to attending ceremonies and rites on the reservation, and no one skips the first day of hunting season or blueberry picking. Speaking of time, I have to log off now. I hope I haven't wasted yours! I guess I really did enjoy your blog....
ReplyDeleteThen again, some people are lured by words not to fix their supper.... According to Ethnologue (16th edition), there are 18 living languages in the area defined by the boundaries of the Micronesian nation; of them, at least the 4 languages that match the state names have dictionaries, so I can envision a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon in December poring over the number of "words" related to speed in each of the four. (I've put "words" in quotes because there's always a question of just what constitutes a word in a given language, especially when Anglo-American language mavens crow about English having the largest vocabulary in the world, though perhaps not in reference to snow....)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Monty. I was especially amused by the Mbiti matter. I can express the future tense in Twi, the language of the Ashanti, Akan, and Fanti peoples of central and southern Ghana in West Africa.
ReplyDeleteIn all the various places I have lived time is an interesting matter. In Ghana we spoke of Ghananian time, in the Saint Croix there was Caribbean time, out here the term "island time" is used, always with a smile and a sense of happiness. Life is short enough, why live it with the accelerator down in a fast forward mode?
Noting the comment on passing through someone's home, I did mean to only spend a couple years here on Pohnpei. That was over seventeen years ago. My wife is from Micronesia and my three children were born here. Our home is bilingual and my wife and I use both languages in order that our children do not perceive linguistic favoritism. They being raised with a sense of pride in both of their heritages, and they know no other home. Meanwhile, many of my in-laws now make their home in the "Western" world and their children are growing up there. Maybe home is simply where the heart is.
Thanks, Dana. The accelerator pedal to the floor is another reason I hope to be teaching there. My father used to say people are going nowhere fast, and that was years ago. I currently live in an area where the majority of folks aren't supposed to be imbibing caffeine, but they must drink enough hot cocoa to fire them up. Eric's comment about the President double parking and then getting up and moving his own car is about the right pace for me. By the way, I look forward to hearing about your stay in Ghana and the Akan languages.
ReplyDeleteI've copied parts of the Adyaje book, and if I'm there in the autumn I'll share it with you. One of the essays discusses the problems white colonialists and indigenous peoples in South Africa had. The Africans expected to get paid at the end of every month, which they contracted for, but they were angry that the whites kept adding one, two, or even three days to the month in a whimsical fashion. The Africans wondered how it was that the white people there didn't know how long a month was, i.e., the moon's natural cycle of approximately 28 days. In another part of the sub-Sahara (I forget which), local people said that it was obvious that "one o'clock" meant the first hour of daylight; after all, who begins a "day" in the middle of the night? And although I've read the explanations and rationales maybe a dozen times, I still don't like "daylight saving time." No daylight is saved, of course.
Daylight savings time is one of the pluses to living here, we never save any daylight. We are, however, past the date of latest sunset. The sun is rising earlier but also setting earlier. Through 21 June the rising time moves earlier faster than the setting time, but one still has the sense of shortened days. Here the effects of the equation of time are more noticeable than the change in the length of the day per se.
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