Zinza Writers' Workshop Part 1

Last week I went out to Kome Island to participate in a workshop teaching about 15 Zinza speakers to write their language. This group had already been taught to read Zinza, so they had some experience with their writing system. Now it was their turn to write some stories, rather than just read them.

One of the exercises that they did was to draw a picture and label the various items in the picture (using Zinza, of course). The next day they wrote stories, in groups, about the pictures.

Even though I couldn't completely understand the stories when they were read out loud, it was truly a delight to hear the laughter that was elicited by them. I did clue in at the end of one of the stories when my Zinza name (Nyakahoza) was incorporated into the story. I was honored to make a guest appearance in their story!

Here are the pictures that they drew which inspired the stories:

Fishing

Animal Husbandry

Home Life and Family

Hunting

Farming

Is everything spelled exactly correctly? No. BUT I saw tone markings, vowel length and other little uses of their writing system that were very encouraging to me that they will use it and grow in their ability to write their language accurately!

As you can see though, they really enjoyed the exercise: