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...

Ringgit

Months ago I commented on how BBC reporters refer to the Chinese currency, the yuan /juɛn/ 元, as the /juan/ 'you-ahn', rhyming with 'one'. And this is despite the fact that they employ people trained in phonetics to research these things. The trend might be due to the fact that other people have started calling it the 'you-ahn', but it's not like a historic standard like saying 'Paris' with the final 's'. So what's the point then of hiring people to check these things anymore?

Today, I just saw another report on the BBC about inflation in Malaysia. The reporter pronounced the name of the national currency, the ringgit, as the /rɪŋɪt/ 'ring-it', without the voiced velar stop /g/. For people who are familiar with Malay and Indonesian, if the word was meant to be pronounced that way, it would be written 'ringit'. The velar nasal is written using the digraph 'ng', while the following velar stop is written with an additional 'g'. So, the currency really is the /rɪŋgɪt/ 'ring-git'.

I don't mind if news programmes completely anglicise the pronunciation of foreign names and currencies, but the BBC hires people to verify how to pronounce these names as close as possible to the source language.

Australia Day vs Republic Day (India)

26 January is Australia Day (to some, 'Invasion Day'), which commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. 26 January in India is Republic Day (a different kind of 'Invasion Day' to some), which commemorates the coming into effect of the Constitution of India in 1950.

I was half-jokingly saying online that in Australia, people have barbecues and may go see the fireworks. In India (or at least this part of India), people stay indoors and pray nothing gets blown up.

The threat of attacks by various underground organisations in the NE is pretty high around important 'Indian' holidays like Republic Day and Independence Day. Such organisations often call for bandhs 'strikes' around these period, and if you're caught opening your shop or driving a vehicle that is not on hospital duty in some areas, your property will be torched and you may get beaten or worse, killed. People generally don't travel around these holidays and for good reason. Security around bazaars and railway stations goes up - my friend and I were stopped in an auto the other day and questioned about our 'purpose' for passing through the bazaar area.

Over here, Republic Day really is a symbol of Indian colonialism and oppression in the region. I suppose to put it in Australian terms, imagine if the Northern Territory wanted to secede from Australia (I could have used WA, but some people there really do want to secede and I want to keep this hypothetical). The reasons for succession would include: exploitation by a government that takes away resources (like oil and natural gas) without doing enough to support local development; having to deal with waves of illegal migrants coming from a neighbouring Muslim nation (like Indonesia) which isn't a priority for the central government in far-away Canberra; and a distinct Terroritorian cultural identity from the rest of Australia.

Canberra on the other hand refuses to part with the NT for strategic reasons and because it would mean giving up natural resources. With the failure of secession talks, and decades of brutal abuse by the Australian military sent to the region, some groups believe that the only way they can make the Australian government listen to them is through acts of terrorism.

Then imagine that various indigenous Australian groups or 'nations', like the Yolngu, in the Northern Territory felt like their cultural identities were being oppressed by white Territorians. They believe that the only way they can maintain a sense of sovereignty is by fighting their 'white' colonisers, including both the Territorians and other Australians. Arnhem Land in particular is a hotbed of 'terrorist' activity, with weapons and drugs flowing in from neighbouring Indonesia, and people going across the straits to train in guerrilla warfare. Of course, the various groups don't all get along, and occasionally violence flares up between each group. Within each group, fundamental differences in opinion (or men simply wanting to secure more power) may cause splinter factions to form and more infighting to occur.

Now imagine that every 26th of January, Australia Day / 'Invasion Day' comes round. And it feels like a kick in the groin for all the various organisations and factions in the region, especially seeing the other states celebrating with their fireworks and their barbecues.

Hmm. Almost doesn't sound as hypothetical as I wanted it to.


Anyway, I've just been lying in bed all day sick with a cold. Not that I really want to go outside today. Here's a short summary of some attacks just from this week:

22/23 Jan 2011 - I can't seem to find a link for this, but I saw it in a paper on Monday. There was a bomb targetting the Arunachal Express which exploded just before the train passed the area where it was planted. This, and other announcements by rebel groups, then led to the cancellation of all night passenger trains in Assam from 24 Jan to 28 Jan, with night trains going from Guwahati to Lumding (on the way to Dimapur) cancelled till 30 Jan. I discovered these cancellations firsthand when my friend was trying to get a ticket back to Dimapur for the 25th.

24 Jan 2011 - A bus travelling from Guwahati to Manipur via Dimapur was attacked in Karbi Anglong district at 5.15am. 3 people were injured, including a 12 year old girl (another report says it was a boy). The attackers have been identified as being from the Karbi Liberation People's Tiger (KLPT). A goods train also derailed in Lower Haflong - this report says bandh supporters might have removed part of the track, but other reports say it was a bomb blast that caused the train to derail.

26 Jan 2011 - The Indian Telegraph reports that the All Assam Students Union (AASU) bandh turned violent in Sivasagar district with several vehicles being damaged and staff 'manhandled'. The link to the article doesn't seem to work though. I'm sure I'll here more news over the next 24 hours.

Booking a hotel in India

I've had a rather mixed bag when booking hotels / guest houses in India.

My first time in Kolkata in 2009, I'd booked a room at a guest house via email but arrived to find it had been given away (I had been afraid of that, given that my flight was arriving in the evening but I'd given them my flight details). When I was in Delhi a few months ago, I contacted a hotel via email and was given the option of a 'standard' or 'deluxe' room, but did not hear from them when I told them I wanted the 'standard' room. They only replied when I wrote back saying I would 'take a look' at the deluxe room and see if I wanted it. Of course, when I arrived at the hotel, I found I only had the option of the deluxe room.

Yesterday (Friday) I was trying to book a hotel room in Guwahati for me and some visiting friends from Nagaland for Saturday and Sunday night or Sunday and Monday night, depending on when my friends were coming. I visited one hotel to ask about vacancies and they said they were fully booked for Saturday, but Sunday was fine. When I rang later to book for Sunday, there were suddenly no more vacancies (something about a wedding party booking the whole place). But when I dropped by in person this morning, there was once again a room available for Sunday.

Slightly more puzzling was this conversation I had when I rang another hotel:

Me: Do you have a vacancy on Sunday night?
Guy on phone: No sir, fully booked.
Me: Are you sure you are fully booked?
Him: Yes sir.
Me: Okay, I'm actually in Guwahati already. I have some friends coming on either Saturday or Sunday and need a room for two nights.
Him: We have vacancy for tomorrow (Saturday). I think it is better if you come tomorrow.
Me: Yes, but I need the room for two nights.
Him: Okay sir, you can have the room for two nights.

I considered it wise not to point out the obvious discrepancy between his initial response and his latest one. Later I called to push the reservation back one night, with no problems.

It's not the first time I've been first told by a hotel on the phone that they are fully booked, before later finding out - either by going in person, or in the same phone conversation - that a room is in fact available. Why on earth do hotels here feel the need to do this? It's almost as if they don't want full occupancy.

A more prosodic take on Indian English

Today I was at one of Guwahati's few cafes asking the waitress for direction to another place that I suspected wasn't too far away. Now I can ask in Assamese for basic directions now, but being at a cafe meant I could ask in English. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Is it far? Can I walk there?
Her: No, you have to take a bus.
Me: How long will it take to walk there? Half an hour?
Her: It won't take that long.

Now the thing is, when I heard her say 'it won't take that long', I instantly did a double-take and asked if she meant that it would take more than half an hour or less than half an hour to get there on foot. It sounds absurd to me in hindsight because the only possible reading for 'it won't take that long' should be 'it will take less time than that'.

However, for some reason, I interpreted what she had said as 'it won't take exactly half an hour to get there'. Till now, I can't figure out why I thought that and felt the need to clarify. I suspect the confusion was due to a combination of factors. For one thing, I'm always wary of familiar expressions that have slightly different interpretations in Indian English (see my previous post). It also didn't help that in terms of intonation, the word 'that' didn't receive any prominence compared to the word 'long' - if I'd heard 'it won't take that long' with emphasis / nuclear accent on 'that', I'm sure I wouldn't have needed clarification.

Then again, I don't think her speaking in monotone alone was sufficient to cause the confusion (even though it didn't help). Perhaps the reason was more to do with what she'd previously said - if it takes me less than half an hour to walk somewhere (and there's a footpath next to the road and it's not too hot or too cold), why on earth would I want to catch an overcrowded bus?

Making pithas for Magh Bihu

I arrived in Guwahati just in time for the harvest festival মাঘ বিহু Magh Bihu, also known as ভোগালী বিহু Bhogali Bihu - I'm told Bhogali is derived from the Assamese word for 'feast' since the festival is associated with a time of plenty. It also marks the first day of the 10th Assamese month মাঘ Magh.

One of my Assamese tutors (I have two who take turns being my language consultants) was nice enough to take me to a small Bihu fair that was taking place in town. One of the most important activities at the fair was the making of পিঠা pitha, which are typically little rice cakes that come in a number of forms. The process begins with the pounding of rice, which some ladies were doing using the foot-operated mill called a ঢেকী dheki (which I believe is used in Bangladesh too).



Watching the woman on the far right stick her hand in and out of the mortar made me feel like time itself was moving at double speed.


The rice flour is used to make a batter that is cooked on a small pan.


The cooked batter is then rolled up and various fillings are added.


The one everyone was lining up for (or as close to a line as one gets in India) were তিল পিঠা til pitha 'sesame pithas' filled with black sesame, as well as the ones filled with grated coconut (narikol pitha?). We had to wait 45 minutes (!) just to get ten of the sesame ones, and it was going to be another half hour for the coconut ones, so we just left with the sesame ones.

But frankly, having tried other pithas given to me by people, including my other Assamese tutor who just brought some back from her hometown of Dibrugarh in Upper Assam, those pithas from the fair really weren't worth the wait!

Vowels: Does /j/ + /a/ = /æ/ ?

This is something that has been bugging me a little bit since I was in Nepal back in October last year. It concerns the orthographic representation of the English vowel /æ/ in words like taxi /tæksi/ when they are borrowed into Nepali.

The word for taxi in Nepali is ट्याक्सि, which transliterated gives Tyaaksi, where T represents a voiceless unaspirated retroflex stop (the tip of the tongue is slightly further back than when you produce a normal alveolar 't' sound in English). The appearance of the retroflex is not surprising here as English alveolar stops are usually borrowed into Indic languages like Nepali and Hindi as retroflex stops. (Assamese is the exception here as it has lost its retroflex stop series.)

The Nepali spelling suggests that the word is pronounced /ʈjaksi/ (/j/ represents the sound 'y'). My friend Sara insisted that Nepali speakers would palatalise (produce a particular speech sound while simultaneously raising the body of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth) the first consonant when saying the word and her theory was that they were trying to follow the American pronunciation of the word 'taxi'. (Correct me if I got this wrong Sara.)

I wasn't convinced with that explanation. For one thing, I would often hear speakers say something closer to /ʈɛksi/, without palatalising the first consonant and with the vowel /ɛ/, which is much more similar to /æ/. I also didn't see why Nepali would borrow English /t/ as a palatalised retroflex stop /ʈj/ since English /t/ isn't palatalised in this context. Also, I thought it counterintuitive that speakers would follow an American English pronunciation to guide their spelling, given the influence of British English across the Indian sub-continent.

Instead, my theory was that the combination of the letters 'y' and 'a' (या) represent the vowel /æ/ (or a close approximation like /ɛ/) and are not pronounced like /ja/. Unfortunately, other things came up (like 2 months in Nagaland), and I wasn't able to get more evidence to support my hypothesis.

Then today on the bus back to the Guwahati University Guest House, I found myself staring at the sign for the Volkswagen showroom while we were stuck in traffic. While I'm not as familiar with the Assamese script, the main thing I noticed was that the syllable corresponding to 'wa' in Volkswagen was written as ওয়া, which would be transliterated as 'oya'. Now, I'm assuming that the transliteration of Volkswagen in the Assamese script is based on the English pronunciation of the word and not the German one - the presence of 'o' in 'oya' suggests that it is trying to approximate /w/, not /v/. If this is true, then it provides evidence from another Indic language that a combination of the letters 'y' and 'a' are used to represent the English /æ/, as in 'wagon' /wægən/, or a close approximation of that sound.

I have to take a photo of that Volkswagen sign next time I pass by. Once I do and have evidence that Assamese does in fact use 'ya' to represent /æ/, I might try and confirm that Nepali uses the same strategy to represent this vowel.

(Note: standard Hindi avoids this problem altogether because it has the vowel /ɛ/ in its phoneme inventory, which is close to /æ/. It is often transliterated as 'ai' even though it is not a diphthong, e.g. in टैक्सी Taiksii 'taxi'. Also, the vowel in Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif's last name is not pronounced as a diphthong in standard Hindi.)