Rapid Word Collection

For the last week we’ve been collecting words for a dictionary of the Kabwa language! We’ll continue the collection this week as well.

A system has been developed called Rapid Word Collection in which groups look at a certain domain (like ‘kitchen’, ‘person’, ‘cow’, etc.) and write down all the words that they can think of that relate to that domain. They are also given some questions to help them think of different types of words within that domain.

There are over 1700 domains…and about 1000 pages of questions!

(as a side note, a challenging and fun job that I’ve had over the past several weeks is translating these questions from English into Swahili!)

We have 6 groups who spend about 10 minutes per domain (each group is looking at different domains). These words then get translated into Swahili and entered into a database. We are hoping to collect close to 10,000 words – a great start to a Kabwa dictionary!

At the end of each day each group presents their favorite 2 words that they came up with from that day. There has been much laughter and joy during this part of the workshop as they marvel at the different and interesting words that they have in their language. There are specific words for the house that a boy will build when he is ready to marry, and what a child is called before they have cut their first tooth.

The words on the left are Kabwa, and the right side is the Swahili translation.

As always, another fun part about being out in the village for two weeks is the chance to bring books and the Word of God to people who probably have never owned a book written in Kabwa. Adults and children alike have loved buying these books throughout the workshop. We even sold one book for 4 mangos, when our asking price was only 3 mangos : ).