Language Use

Written Saturday, September 27, 2008

I’ve been trying to learn some Rutooro (the local language) and am finding it to be very challenging. For one thing a word in Rutooro is often twice as long as the same English word, so there are more letters and sounds to remember. Secondly, I find the pronunciation of Rutooro words to be extremely difficult. My mouth struggles to put the sounds together correctly. Swahili feels like a much easier language. Plus, in Kenya I lived with 600 children who were always eager to teach you the most basic of Swahili phrases.

Janis and I (miraculously) found an English/Rutooro phrase book. Some of the phrases included are actually quite hilarious because they’re not things you would find in a North American-produced phrase book and seem completely strange to us. For example:

Mother-in-law is bad
Uncle was drunk
I can not walk totally
But I wish to get an injection
Do not come on foot!
Do not come when very dirty
A good one sells itself
A bad thing beshames
You go to dig tomorrow
My leg is swelling inside, it seems there is pus.
I have come running to school and I am ever sweating.
My classroom is not very loud and neither does funnies.

And my personal favourite: Why do you make children cry every day?