I come from a land down under

One of the first things I learn to say in a foreign language is how to say, "I'm from..." or "I come from...", mainly because one of the first things people ask me is where I'm from. It's also a reasonable useful phrase for any language learner.

However, I find the phrase tricky to learn for 2 reasons. The first one is probably more specific to the geographically displaced person that I am. I usually say "I come from Singapore but live in Australia", even if my friends in Nepal and India will typically introduce me as their friend from Australia. It just seems less troublesome when I'm travelling in Asia and Europe, especially since I don't look like what many people expect an Australian to look like i.e. white, nor do I sound particularly Australian (although I did meet an American lady who insisted I had an Australian accent, which I found rather puzzling).

But discounting any potential geographic confusion of one's origins, the phrase is potentially problematic if you're asking for a literal translation in another language. I've found a few times that when I ask people how to say "I come from...", they often give me a sentence that is better translated as 'I am coming from...' or 'I have come from...', which tells the hearer the last place I visited, as opposed to my country / land of origin.

I suspect it's translating the verb 'come' that throws my tutors off - they're trying to convey the meaning of motion, when the English doesn't actually convey this.

Using the verb venir 'to come' works fine in French, although it's possible to just use the verb 'to be' and a preposition:
Je viens de Singapour 'I come from Singapore.'
Je suis de Singapour. 'I am from Singapore.'

But in Russian, what I'd say is:
Я из Сингапура ya iz Singapur-a 'I am from Singapore.' (lit. 'I from Singapore' with a preposition and no verb meaning 'to be')
I can't even think of a verb corresponding to 'come' that would be appropriate here. If I did use one here, I'd feel like I was talking about recently arriving from Singapore.

Similarly, in (Lower) Assamese I was first taught:
[would love to put the Assamese text here at some point]
Moy Singapur-pora ahisu.
(forgive the transliteration, this was based on my own transcriptions, and I have a LOT of trouble with the back vowels)

And in Sumi:
Niye Singapur lono ighi va.

However, both literally mean, 'I have come from Singapore.' (or to match the word order, 'I Singapore from have come'). The form of the verb 'to come' ahisu in (Lower) Assamese and the use of va with the verb ighi 'to come' in Sumi are used in sentences that one would typically translate as being in the perfect aspect in English. I suspect that both sentences suggest that I have recently arrived from Singapore, which is not the intended meaning.

Rather, in order to convey the meaning of origin, it might be necessary in languages to say something like 'I am Singaporean.' In Chinese, I would probably say:
我是新加坡人。
wo shi xinjiapo ren
(where 人 ren means 'person'.)

In Sumi, the equivalent of this would be:
Niye Singapur-mi.
with the suffix -mi meaning 'person' and no verb meaning 'to be'.

Alternatively, what I've learn to say in Nepali, is:
मेरो देश सिंगापुर हो, तर म ऑस्ट्रेलियामा बास्छु।
mero des Singaapur ho, tara ma Australiya-maa baaschhu
which literally means 'My country (des) is Singapore, but I live in Australia.'

Similarly, in Assamese, I can say:
mor dex Singapore, kintu moi bortoman Australiat thaku
'My country is Singapore, but nowadays I live in Australia.'

Of course, this often assumes that your country of origin is the same as your current nationality, which is not always the case. However, things are never that simple - some people I know who read this blog certainly have more complicated geographical origins!

I'd therefore be interested to hear of other ways to introduce where you come from in these and other languages. I'd also be interested to know why people choose to introduce themselves in this particular way.

Eventually, I suppose I will start introducing myself as being 'Australian'. Although I'm more likely to give a nod to Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton and say, "I am Australian", instead of "I come from a land down under."

Back in business

It's been 6 months since my blog post. A lot has happened since then, not all of it India-related. But I'm back and eagerly awaiting my return to Assam and Nagaland.

First, a shout-out to my friend Abokali for the amazing work she's been doing the past year keeping up the documentation of traditional Sumi songs and knowledge. She's got her own awesome blog here at:
http://thevillagemicroscope.blogspot.com/

Her brother Canato also has a blog - check out his fantastic artwork at:
http://canajimo.blogspot.com/

So the big news is that we've received two grants this year. One from the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research, and another from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP), the granting component of the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project. These grants are for project that aims to document traditional songs and stories of the Sumis of Nagaland. I was around last year to help with a few pilot recordings last December (see photo below) and with some local fundraising (not fun) in the town of Zunheboto. With the funds, we will be able to purchase new equipment, purchase gifts / offer payment to performers, hire staff to do transcription and translation work, and produce a book and DVD for the community.

In the meantime, I'm trying to sort out my travel arrangements...

More posts will come, now that I'm back.

(Also, check out L.'s new linguistics blog at:
http://www.superlinguo.com/)

NEILS 6 - Day One

Today was the first day of the 6th annual North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS) conference taking place this year at Tezpur University just out of the town of Tezpur, Assam. It's a great place for people for linguists and language workers and teachers working in the region to come and meet.

Now, the last time I came for NEILS it was held in Shillong, Meghalaya. It was a bit of a last minute trip and I'd only decided to attend at the last moment (I actually ended up spending half that conference at Cherrapunjee near the Bangladeshi border, hiking down to see the Khasi root bridges made by 'training' ficus trees to grow their roots across rivers. It was a trip I had planned to do anyway, but it just so happened that someone else from the conference was going there at the time.)

So today was my first time presenting at NEILS - I gave a talk on verb nominalisation in Sumi and how monosyllabic, disyllabic and sesquisyllabic verbs behave differently with regards to such nominalisation. I got some pretty good feedback. It's also always nice to present on the first day of a conference. It means you can relax for the rest of the conference and actually focus on what everyone else is talking about. In my case, it also meant having only one sleepless night.

It was quite an invigorating day for me, given that I got through the paper with no major hiccups. Outside the talks, I also had a few meetings with other participants regarding developing minority language educational materials. The sort of work being done is something I found truly inspiring. It just made want to head back to Nagaland and get a team together to do this sort of work now.

Of course there were a few really painful, though quite amusing moments. The first was when the vice-chancellor of the university, who knew nothing about linguistics, gave his ridiculously long welcome speech at the opening ceremony in the morning. All the while trying to sound like he knew what he was on about. He kept referring to 'the linguistics' and I couldn't tell if he meant 'linguistics' as a discipline or if he just got the wrong word for 'linguists'. For some reason he assumed that the majority of participants came from Nagaland, which was odd because there's only one Naga participant here (unless you also count me, as an adopted Naga). Then he went on for a bit about Nagamese and how to his ears it's like Assamese but 'without the Naga influence' (or something like that). There were a few terrible anecdotes he shared, before he mentioned the fact that he had spent 4 years in Germany and learnt that there are German words like tschüss which aren't found in the dictionary because they're 'slang words used by the young people'! (see Wiktionary entry here)

It's moments like these when I'm glad I'm just a nobody at these conferences and not sitting on the stage having to contain myself in front of the whole crowd.

The second incident happened when a presenter was asked how old the language she was working on was.

Given that languages are constantly changing, the question of a language's age seems quite absurd. I was told later that the Indian government takes the 'age' of a language very seriously, as it is one of the criteria used to judge where a language should be considered a 'Modern Indian Language'. Scott DeLancey clarified that what they really mean is 'How long has the language been written / had a written script?' The belief is that a language is only 'born' when it is codified in some written form.

That means that many languages here are still in their infancy, while most are still unborn!

Visiting villages

Between Assamese lessons, preparing my presentation for this coming week's North-east Linguistics Society (NEILS) conference, and being sick, I haven't had much time to blog this week.

One thing I did manage to do was submit a grant application to the World Oral Literature Project (WOLP) for the documentation project Ab. and I are doing. We started fundraising in Zunheboto in early December, and just after Christmas, we got to go visit a few villages in the district to record some traditional songs associated with the agricultural year (I've saved the details for the grant application).

We got to see a few activities associated with shifting cultivation (known as jhum cultivation here) like the clearing of the jungle and the breaking up of the soil, as well as the relevant songs. The villages we visited were Shoipu, Nunumi and Usütomi. While all the songs were performed for our benefit, some could be considered more 'authentic' than others - where the villagers actually performed the songs while engaging in the actual agricultural activity. But I think to most people present, the performances were all pretty authentic.

The male villagers at Shoipu are performing the song associated with breaking up the soil and digging up the roots. The women followed behind using large sticks to break up the lumps in the soil.


Two women at Shoipu that Ab. interviewed after the performance


The field close to Usütomi village. I hadn't counted on the wind being so strong here, so the audio recordings have a fair amount of wind noise.


Me with some of the women from Usütomi. They were a little annoyed that their menfolk left before them. Traditionally, women are supposed to lead the way back to the village.

Here's to visiting more villages in the future. I don't know how much I'll be inclined to blog about, given that copyright becomes more of an issue with these documentation projects. I'm pretty sure members of the community won't mind, especially those who read this blog from time to time.

But I suppose I could just start a different blog with Ab. to document the whole documentation process...

To block road, to dam to fish

The other day as I was going through the Sumi-English dictionary by Lozhevi Sema, I found this verb:

yekhi: ala lakha, yekha keu akushino azü yekhakeu = to block road; to dam to fish.

While my friends weren't too familiar with this particular entry, it seems to refer to blocking either a road or a river (the latter for the purpose of catching fish).

This immediately brought to mind what happened last week as we were travelling back to Zunheboto after doing some cultural documentation in a few villages. We were crossing the Lanki River - which I dubbed the 'Lion King' river - when a rather peculiar sight greeted us.

The Lanki River


First, I couldn't make out where we were meant to ford the river, but the driver didn't have any problem plunging the car right into part of the river. When we emerged on the embankment in the middle of the river, there was a car parked on it, with a few men in military uniform standing around with guns - members of the Underground.

For those who don't know, there's an insurgency problem in Nagaland, with a whole 'government' running parallel with the government recognised by India. They're not terribly popular, given their penchant for violence and extortion. At least now there's a ceasefire between the Underground and the Indian Army, but there are also a number of different factions which still fight amongst themselves.

Anyway, the curious thing that day wasn't anything to do with violence. It was a steam shoveller in a pond. And it was blocking our attempt to cross the river.



What these guys were doing, was using the steam shoveller to dam the river and make a smaller channel so they could catch fish! In the process, they had also changed the course of the river, thereby blocking the usual road, and the car had to struggle up a muddy path, aided by a few of us pushing it up.



The verb yekhi would therefore be doubly appropriate to describe what happened here. Of course, damming the river this way and blocking all traffic just to have a bit of fun definitely doesn't make the guys in the Underground any more popular.

Christmas in Nagaland (III)

It was back to Natha New on Christmas morning. After tea, biscuits and fried Sümi sho, we were off to the village where lunch was ready for us at 8am - my stomach no longer knows when it should be full, so I just eat when I am fed.

There was a morning service (yes, another service) at the local church, before another service up at the feast venue, which was H S Rotokha's brother's compound.

Remember the butcher's area from the day before? Amazing how some pine leaves and a few chairs can transform the place into the VIP area.


I was eventually asked to sit on one of the chairs on the little 'stage' area, which I always find embarrassing, but at least I got a good view of the entertainment. The women of the village put up two comedy skits, though given my lacking listening comprehension skills in Sumi, Nagamese and Hindi I wasn't able to follow them. But  I did certainly appreciate the physical comedy.



The Chief Officer (I think) from the local Assam Rifles was also invited and he was treated to the show too. The man's so massive he looks like he could crush you with his bare hands...



After food, it was time for the bamboo climbing competition. The day before, two bamboo poles had been erected with a large chunk of meat (a pig's leg) and a bottle containing about 1,000 Rs dangling from the top. The idea is to climb to the top of the bamboo pole to claim the prize.



To make the climbing experience even worse more fun, the whole pole is greased with pork fat. The only way to get up without sliding down is to apply ash on the pole to rub as much of the grease off. Standing on the downwind side of the base, I got quite a bit of ash in my face...





After about half an hour, one guy finally made it to the top of the left pole. I observed that he had waited for the others to clean off the grease before attempting to make his first climb. He later also managed to reach the top of the other pole. Very clever.

The victor


It was a great way to end the celebrations. And soon we were back to Zunheboto where I ended the day at Nito Mount singing songs late into the night by a bonfire.

Oh, what a great Christmas.

Christmas in Nagaland (II)

I was invited to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the distinguished H S Rotokha (or 'apuh Sükato')'s home village of Natha New, which is so close to Zunheboto town, it might even become a suburb (or assa 'colony' as sub-divisions of towns are known here) of the town.

The village of Natha New


H S Rotokha was throwing a feast for the villagers on Christmas Day, and by the time I arrived at the village on Christmas Eve, preparations had been well underway. I was told that all up, 8 pigs, 2 mithun and 1 rooster had been slaughtered for the feast (that's for another post).

H S Rotokha and his wife, in front of the women pounding rice using akhumu, big pestles, in the big aboshu, a long log-like structure with little depressions carved from a single piece of wood. Basically, a very big mortar.




I got to try my hand at pounding rice in the aboshu. They also dressed me in head gear meant for women...


Some men were busy making baskets out of bamboo.


Others were busy cutting up the pork and mithun meat.




Once the rice was pounded, it was used to make Sumi sho, often translated as 'Sumi bread', although it's more like a steamed rice patty wrapped in a banana leaf.






I personally prefer the fried version, which reminds me of the shel roti I had in Nepal.

Later, it was off to the local Baptist church for the evening service. I found the sermon, given by one of H S Rotokha's daughters, a little hard to follow given that a) I didn't understand most of it, and b) towards the end, the sound of fireworks ouside got very distracting.

That evening we headed back to Zunheboto town for the night. The surrounding hills echoed with the sound of fireworks, which everyone referred to as 'bombs', for hours. I don't think I've ever heard had a Christmas Eve quite like this, or experienced fireworks (not just firecrackers)going on for such a long stretch of time. While it wasn't exactly a constant cacophony and there wasn't any grand climax, every few minutes you'd hear some more 'bombs' go off. This went well into the night.



It's amazing I got any sleep that night, but next morning we were up bright and early to head back to Natha New for the feast.

Going in all directions

One thing I had noticed when I was working on my MA thesis was that along with the verb wu 'to go' (though I think it might actually just be u), Sumi also had two other verbs: wo and hu.

The verb wo is generally used with the noun aki 'house', as in aki lo wo 'to go home' (lo is a locative or allative marker), suggesting that the verb also conveys the meaning of motion towards one's home / point of origin. The verb hu is usually used with the noun alu 'field', as in alu lo hu 'to go to the field', suggesting that the verb also conveys the meaning of motion away from one's home / point of origin. The verb wu therefore simply means 'to go' with no direction specified. Let's also not forget the verb ighi 'to come', which specifies direction towards the speaker / hearer / some common reference point, but at the time I was more interested in the wo and hu distinction at the time, which I think I've worked out.

In addition to these, I'd also found two other verbs, ipe which one speaker had told me meant 'to go out' or and ilo 'to go in' (iloghi also appears, containing the same ghi found in ighi 'to come' - something to work on). Again, I wasn't that surprised that the language made these distinctions. After all, English distinguishes between 'to enter' and 'to exit'.

Just recently on this trip, I'd been alerted to two more verbs: iqi 'to go down' and iqho 'to go up'. These can also mean 'to go South' and 'to go North' respectively. This is just like how people in Melbourne might 'go up' to Sydney for the weekend or people from Sydney will 'come down' to Melbourne. In French, on peut descendre sur la Côte d'Azur ou monter à Paris, ('One can go down to the Cote d'Azure or go up to Paris.'), assuming I'm coming from somewhere like Lyon. The image in people's minds I assume is that of a standard geographical map with North pointing up.

Similarly, a speaker in the town of Zunheboto might say:

(1)    Satakha lo iqini.
        (I) will go to Satakha.' (Satakha is south of Zunheboto)

(2)    Suruhuto lo iqhoni.
        '(I) will go to Suruhuto.' (Suruhuto is north of Zunheboto)

However, and this is the curious thing, if a speaker was going to Nito Mount (where I was and will be staying) from the centre of Zunheboto town, they would say:

(3)    Nito Mount lo iloni.
        '(I) will go to Nito Mount.'

And if a speaker in Nito Mount was going to the Zunheboto town centre, they would say:

(4)    Zünheboto lo ipeni.
        '(I'm) going to Zunheboto.'

At first I thought it was strange that one would say literally that they were 'going out' of town, where in English one would say 'I'm going into town.' Someone then pointed out that the important thing was that one was travelling west to Nito Mount and east to Zunheboto (which I'm slightly dubious about). Similarly, people would use the verb ilo to say they were going to Dimapur or Delhi, which all lie west of Zunheboto.

What it looks like then, is that the four verbs: ilo 'to go in', ipe 'to go out', iqho 'to go up' and iqho 'to go down', can also mean 'to go west', 'to go east', 'to go north' and 'to go south'.

As I've noted 'going up' and 'going down' are often associated with 'going north' and 'going south', but are there other languages where 'going in' and 'going out' correspond to 'going east' and 'going west'? And I don't just mean phrases like 'going into the East' or 'going out west', but instances where people will say the equivalent of 'I'm going in to (PLACE)' when that place is east of the speaker.

Visit to Satoi (II)

When we arrived in Satoi, it became clear that our little 'sightseeing' trip would involve a little more than sightseeing. It was the 50th anniversary of the local pastor's appointment in the village and the occasion was in away a retirement party for him. I think it was also meant to commemorate his 75th birthday. Arriving with the reverend meant more VIP treatment - this time we got chappatis and avi kighinoli (mithun innards) and more cups of milk and black tea.

We were then led into the church, where the service was held.




I was a little embarrassed because they first ushered me right to the front to sit on the couches in the front row, when even the pastor was sitting on a plastic chair. At least we managed to give our seats to the pastor and his wife, but I ended up sitting in front of other guests of honour. During the service, I also had to stand and give a little wave while Ab. introduced me to the whole congregation - being a foreigner, having an MA and having worked on Sumi is apparently enough to attract this kind of attention. At the end of the service, I was presented, along with the other VIPs, with a bag containing a book about the pastor's life.

Then there was the feast following the service. To be fair, I could've taken a little less food without offending anyone, but I counted no less than four kinds of meat: pork, chicken, beef and mithun, cooked in a whole host of ways. And a lot more fat... but at least there were fresh vegetables. I only had one serving, which was more than enough...


On our way back from Satoi, we managed to stop a few times to take photos of the valley. You can see Zunheboto town on the ridge just off to the right.


We also stopped again in Ghokhüvi to look at some of the Baptist conference preparations. I really liked the traditional wind chimes that adorned the entrance to the main venue.



A view of Ghokhüvi from the bottom of the village


Leaving the village, we had to drive again down to the base of the valley and up again. This time we had a bit more time, so we stopped for photos at the bridge right near the confluence of the Tizü and Tsütha Rivers. It's a very pretty valley.



The Tsütha River just before it joins the Tizü




I had a great day, despite the initial embarrassment and over-eating. Looking forward to visiting other villages and having more feasts!

Visit to Satoi (I)

Two days ago, I went with Ab. and her father, the Rev. Yev., to the village of Satoi in the southern part of the Zunheboto district. Given that he's the head of all the district churches he often travels out of Zunheboto town. I've read that Satoi was really beautiful, and when we heard he was going, Ab. asked if we could tag along to do some sightseeing (we wouldn't get in the way).

So on Saturday, we got up bright and early to head south towards Satoi. The road wasn't great, and I've heard they're doing reparation work on it, mainly because one of the ministers in the State Government is from Satoi (although now that he flies there by helicopter, who knows how the road will turn out).

The worst bit was a little landslide where we all got out to walk, except for poor Subu our driver who had to get the car across.





Our first stop was for breakfast in the village of Ghokhüvi (pronounced quite close to 'Rock-a-vee', and if you pronounce your 'r's like in French). The 'ü' is a high central vowel that is often produced as a schwa in this position.

The church in Ghoküvi.


Arriving with the reverend, we were ushered to the outside area of the house of who I'm assuming is the local pastor and given delicious Sumi sho or 'Sumi bread' made with rice flour and lightly fried - a lighter version of the shel roti I was fed in Nepal during Tihar. Then there was dried innards (mostly liver and some intestines) which I was told are made by boiling them, then drying them, then frying them. Very nice.



The village was busy preparing for this big conference of all the Sumi Baptist churches starting on the 9th of this month. In the outside area of most houses, people were setting up large wooden structures to house all the people set to visit later in the week.



And after breakfast, we were off to Satoi, a little bit further up the hill.

'We dual'

The pronoun system of Sumi is given below. As you can see, pronouns in Sumi are marked for singular, dual and plural number.

SINGULAR
ni / i 'I' (these carry low tone)
no 'you' (this carries low tone)
pa 'he/she' (li 'she' also exists, but is not used often)

DUAL
ikujo 'we two'
okujo 'you two'
pama / küma 'they two'

PLURAL
ningu 'we all (more than two)' (ni- carries mid tone)
nongu 'you all (more than two)' (no- carries mid tone)
panongu 'they all (more than two)'

In addition, you can specify the number of people in a group, e.g.niküthü (ni-küthü 'we-three') 'we three', nobidi (no-bidi 'you-four') 'you four'.

It was therefore interesting to hear (and to be able to see the mistake when) a friend's 3 year old son pointed to a photo of himself and his father and said, 'nikini', which literally means 'we-two'. He was quickly corrected, the pronoun ikujo being the expected form here.

I'm no child language acquisition specialist, so I can't comment on this as such, but this would suggest that the dual forms are the most marked ones in the pronoun set (similar to English nouns with irregular plural forms) which are learnt after the other pronouns.

Not for the love of syllables

I had an interesting conversation last night with Ab.'s dad last night. He mentioned something that he had said to me last year that I had forgotten. It concerned the syllable structure of English and Sumi. I thought I had misunderstood him the first time, but last night seemed to confirm my original impression.

So the conversation went something like this: in English, we have the word love (we're talking about the verb here), which is monosyllabic (has one syllable). In Sumi, the word for 'love' is kimiye, which is trisyllabic (has three syllables). However, this is actually usually pronounced as disyllabic [kim.ye], with [ki.mi.ye] only appearing in careful speech. (My own belief is that Sumi has these things called 'sesquisyllables' consisting of a weak or 'minor' syllable followed by a strong or 'full' syllable, but let's not go into that.) The point was that we 'needed' to to somehow make the Sumi word for 'love' monosyllabic or coin a monosyllabic equivalent, because the word in English was monosyllabic.

I'm sure most people would find the very thought of this absurd - afterall, all languages have their own syllable structure - but it just goes to show people's attitudes towards English here and how much power English as a language wields within such a, dare I say, post-colonial discourse.

And there are other examples: Sumi makes a meaningful contrast between the voiceless aspirated and voiceless unaspirated post-alveolar affricates /ʧ/ and /ʧh/, which have been written as 'ch' and 'chh' in the orthographic system. (Most English speakers who say the word 'church' will notice that the first sound is accompanied by a strong puff of air. This is a voiceless aspirated post-alveolar affricate. However, most Singaporean English speakers probably wouldn't have that strong a puff of air, and the sound will actually be closer to the voiceless unaspirated affricate.) Recently there's been a move to change 'chh' to 'tch', because in English we have words like 'pitch' where the same sound is represented by 'tch'. Never mind that words like 'teach' and 'church' also exist where the sound is written with 'ch', or that English does not even have a meaningful contrast between the aspirated and unaspirated affricates (so if you said 'church' without that extra puff of air, it wouldn't affect the meaning of the word). The move from 'chh' to 'tch' therefore seems rather pointless to me, unless you're trying to make the language's writing system closer to English's own crazy orthography.

Language vs Culture

At the Ahuna festival two weeks ago I met Ab. (click here for her blog). She'd just come back to Zunheboto after spending some time abroad, including a few years in the UK. Importantly, she'd heard about the World Oral Literature Project (WOLP) and had even contacted Mark Turin regarding the documentation of Sumi stories. One of the reasons I'd come back to Zunheboto (apart from the festival) had been to find native speakers who were willing and able to do documentary work on their own language, with the aims of producing a dictionary (and possibly a grammar). Incidentally, I had considered applying to the WOLP for funding as well - mostly so I could return to conduct a few workshops, but I never imagined I'd meet anyone who would be interested in recording texts right now.

So it was incredibly fortunate that I met her here in Zunheboto. We brought up the topic of doing a documentation project with H S R., the chairman of the Sumi Language Academy and the Sumi Cultural Association, who happens to be one of the most respected members of the community. And somehow, in the past week and a half, we've come up with a proposal to document a number of traditional songs and stories. These songs are rarely performed nowadays and only a few members of the older generation are familiar with them and even fewer are able to compose new ones.

We decided to do the project under the auspices of the Sumi Cultural Association, since the project will be looking at activities deemed 'cultural'. Without going into too much detail, we've spent three out of the past five days visting schools and offices (I've lost count of the number) seeking the support of important members of the community both financially and in spirit. I've also had more milk tea and amixi (snacks like biscuits that go with tea) than I would've liked. We're also planning a trip to Kohima later this week to meet with other officials to seek their support (and hopefully I'll be able to see some things at the Hornbill Festival too).

Now there are some members of the community whom I had spoken to about a dictionary project in the hopes that I could find someone to train to use the software and do a basic linguistic analysis of the entries - I personally would prefer a native speaker who can use a computer to do the dictionary than myself since a) I'm not a native speaker of the language b) there are capable young people who are proficient in both English and Sumi and c) there's a lot of administrative trouble for me to physically remain in the state and the country. In any case, no one suitable had been found, so I suggested that once I had secured some funding, we could put an ad up in the paper later next year and that I could return to do the workshops.

That all seemed fine until these same people heard about the documentation project. Suddenly, they're telling me not to forget the dictionary. One person went as far as to say that I should be doing the dictionary, not the 'cultural documentation' project. This is all in spite of my reassurance that such a documentation project will feed into a dictionary - stories and songs are composed of words afterall! So now I find myself in an odd conflict between 'language' and 'culture', which to me is completely ridiculous because they're both so inextricably intertwined.

I'm also not sure what they expect of me with regards to the dictionary. Over the past two weeks, I've had one-two hour sessions with a member of the Sumi Literature Board who's insisted on sitting me down and going through lists of animal names, unsure of their English translations, and simply describing them without any pictures! I've tried to hint that this really isn't the proper methodology for doing a comprehensive study of zoological terms, but apparently there's a list of plant and fruit names coming tomorrow...

At the moment I suppose I have to reassure these people that I'm not abandoning the dictionary (and I'm not), while at the same time looking for ways to implement a long term project even when I'm not physically present, which was the initial goal anyway. Ideally, I'd like to be back next year for 3-4 months, but it'll depend on funding and whether I get permission to remain in the state for that long a period of time.

Potato smasher

The other day I was asked by a shopkeeper,"Khuuno ghami kea?", which translates roughly as 'Which village are you from?' (lit. 'Whose village person (are you)?') The morpheme gha is also found in lagha which translates as 'clan' and mi is a common Tibeto-Burman noun root meaning 'person'.

Since I don't clearly don't have a village (or clan) and didn't really understand the question, my friend kindly replied on my behalf that I was aluchhephomi, much to the amusement of everyone in earshot. The word can be analysed morphologically as alu 'potato', chhepho 'to break asunder' and mi 'person'. So literally, 'potato smasher'. People here jokingly refer to people who don't know which village they (or their family) are from as aluchhephomi, people from this fabled distant village where the inhabitants smash potatoes, as opposed to doing something useful with them, like say... cooking?

Given my clanless and villageless status here, I guess for the timebeing I'm happy to embrace my potato smashing heritage.

What's the meaning of this?

One of the distinctive features of the Sumi language is its uvular stop series - a voiceless unaspirated uvular stop /q/ and a voiced aspirated uvular stop /qh/, which are produced by making a closure in the oral cavity (mouth) using the back of the tongue and the uvula (right at the back of the mouth). Having studied and taught phonetics, I am familiar with the mechanism of producing such stops, though mine are certainly not identical to those produced by native speakers.

Importantly, these uvular stops contrast with the velar stops /k/ and /kh/, meaning that there is a difference in meaning between words like akhi 'bee' and aqhi 'moon'.

I'm still having a lot of trouble asking in Sumi for the meaning of something - one of the most useful questions when you're studying a foreign language. Though there a few ways to do it, most forms go something like this:

Hi ye kiu kiqi kea?

I'd post an audio recording of how I say it, and how it should be said if I could.

Misty Zunheboto

The name Zunheboto, the name of both the town and district where most Sumis live in Nagaland, is derived from the nouns zünhebo ('ü' represents a high central unrounded vowel, and 'nh' a breathy alveolar nasal), which refers to a kind of flowering plant found in the area, and to, which refers to a 'hill' or 'ridge'.

Like most settlements in Nagaland, Zunheboto is located on top of a long ridge (people here tell me it's not a big town, just a 'long' one). Historically, these provided more security in the event of enemy raids, when tribal warfare was still practised for the purpose of taking land or taking heads, or both.







Zunheboto is pretty high in terms of elevation, and around this time of year it tends to get pretty cold (and windy) compared to other places in Nagaland. I'm told also that on a clear day, Mount Everest is visible from some parts of Zunheboto. I remain slightly skeptical because so far people have pointed in a direction that's been either too much to the southwest or northeast.

Of course, clear days here at this time of year are rare. My first few days here, I'd wake up most mornings to find a thick mist blanketing the valley below my lodge.





During the Ahuna festival, it would clear by afternoon, but since I moved to Zh.'s place, it just seems to get misty at all times of the day. The past two days, we've also had some pretty heavy showers at night and in the afternoon.

Well, here's to hoping for clearer skies (and fewer landslides)!

Ahuna Festival (III)

On the second day of the Ahuna Festival cum Road Show (or 'Road Show cum Ahuna'), it was back to the festival ground in the morning. This was actually the officially set date for the festival every year and there seemed to be more guests of honour than the previous day. I vividly recall hearing sirens coming from behind, signalling the arrival of the guest of honour, the Nagaland Minister for School Education Nyeiwang Konyak, who, as his name suggests, is Konyak, not Sumi.

Just when the day looked set for more school performances of war dances and speeches about how the young people need to contribute more to the state, the local sport council, which my friend Zh. is an active member of, put up a performance showing how some of the older sporting / warring traditions would be passed down to younger members of the community.

Older warriors teaching the younger ones how to perform a war dance, which is meant to frighten the enemy. (In truth it was very cute to watch the little boys perform.)





Another war dance


Warriors slicing up pieces of bamboo, which looks easy, but requires a lot of skill with a dao (a kind of knife). I also enjoyed watching the way they leapt after a successful chop. Reminded me a little of Ryu or Ken from the Streetfighter video games.



The traditional head gear of a rich and respected warrior - the headband itself is made from bear fur (taken from the neck of the bear I'm told). Wealthy and respected warriors also had the three hornbill feathers - and unlike most of the ones I saw that were made of cardboard, these ones here are real!



Later in the morning, a couple of traditional games were played. though not as many as in previous years, as I learnt from a DVD about the Ahuna Festival, also kindly gifted to me by Zh. The first game I saw is known as asü ilheche 'high jump'. In this competition, a bit of banana leaf is tied to the top of a spear. The objective is to jump up high enough to kick the banana leaf with both feet at the same time, which I thought was quite impressive.





Competitors awaiting their turn


The second game involved women competing by ululating, which is meant to be a form of encouragement for the male warriors, though it did draw a bit of laughter from the crowd (and the competitors themselves). I'm not quite sure how the judging was carried out though...



Me with Zh., his wife and his cousin


Me with some of the festival organisers.

Hornets for lunch?

As we sitting at one the stalls at the Ahuna festival drinking milk tea and snacking on beef liver and intestines (they do them so well here), I.'s cousin A. asked me if I'd ever tried 'hornets' or 'hornets larvae', I quickly said no. Within seconds, he'd gone up to a lady selling food wrapped in large leaves (the leaves are called aküghü in Sumi) and bought two. When he came back he told me, 'They were out of hornets, this is just fish.'

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Did I just dodge a bullet, or was he pulling my leg? Not that I would mind trying hornets, I just thought an entire package of them would be a little too much. In any case, he said I didn't have to eat whatever was in the package there and then. So I said I'd wait (till I was somewhere more private).

When I got back to the Heritage tourist lodge (there was a break between the morning and evening programmes), I placed the package on the bed since I had no table inside, and - rather like a leopard - I didn't quite feel like eating in public.

I opened the package to find a small mound of rice, as is the fashion here, with a few pieces of pork fat, and another smaller leaf package.

And lo and behold, there were fish in the small package! They were small, and surprisingly easy to eat, the bones being small and soft. However, I still think some of my friends would be a little grossed out by the way the little fishies were staring at me as I ate them.

So those hornets for lunch will have to wait another day.