A Bunch of Checkmarks

I have now left Musoma. But I wanted to take a chance to show you a picture that summarizes my work over the past 5+ years.

Impressive right?

Ok, maybe not. But what does it mean?

Other than being a bunch of boxes with checkmarks, it means the following for each Jita, Kwaya, and Zinza:

- Approved orthography status (as of my last day in the office!!!)

- Over 250 pages of peer-reviewed linguistic documentation.

- Basic grammars, both in English and in Swahili.

- Extensive documentation of the spelling rules, both in English and in Swahili.

Praise God for all of the work that he enabled me to accomplish!

A Final Language Committee Meeting

Before I leave Musoma in September I'm meant to complete the orthographies of three languages. The Zinza orthography was approved in January. The application for approved status of the Kwaya orthography has been submitted. Finally, the Jita orthography is nearing the end!

I met with the Jita language committee last week. We need their approval of the orthography in order to finalize it. So, we taught them how to read Jita and some of the rules that we've developed. In response to one of the rules the committee members said 'AMEN'! Apparently they were quite excited about the accuracy of that rule and their need for it!

How could they deny this orthography following an "AMEN"? They couldn't!

So, I am entering the final stage of checking that all the documentation is present and written up accurately in order to submit the application for approved status for the Jita orthography!

Keeping it Fun

I needed to meet with the Kwaya language committee to ask one question; whether or not they approve of the Kwaya orthography. Since that would be simple enough, I decided to add in some fun games and discussions that would use written Kwaya.

The committee members read a couple of passages from Acts. They then discussed those passages using some prompts such as "summarize what you just read outloud", "what was interesting to you in this passage?" and others.


The local languages here have so many traditional proverbs, so we also played a Pictionary type game with these. In teams of 2 they pulled a proverb out of a hat then they drew it.






The rest of the group then guessed which proverb they had drawn.





It was such fun seeing all the committee members enjoying their written language so much. AND, they gave me their approval for the orthography!

Is it hard to develop an orthography?

My primary focus at the office is to develop the orthography (writing system) of three different languages. That doesn't sound too difficult, right? You just write it the way it sounds.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

I had no idea that I would debate whether or not hyphens should be used in certain contexts. Or, how to word a rule that covers a theoretical situation for which we have no real world examples. Or, whether 'r' should be used rather than 'l'.

What causes these debates?

One of the major factors is speakers' perceptions. One person thinks that they are pronouncing an 'l' while another thinks that it is an 'r'... and it's the same word. So, do you write 'l' or 'r'? Thankfully that question is resolved for all the languages I work with!

The question I've been looking at recently in one language is whether two non-identical vowels can occur next to each other. For instance; is 'ei' ok or should it be written 'eyi', is 'ou' ok or is it 'owu'? Some speakers clearly hear a 'y' or a 'w' between two non-identical vowels, while others don't think that they are necessarily there.

If we are going to standardize an orthography for this language we must write a rule that clearly tells all speakers of this language how to write, regardless of personal perceptions.

Ok, I don't like to post without a picture...but, what picture can I really post to go with this? So, completely randomly, here is a picture of me with a koala!