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Aine Seitz McCarthy
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Swahili linguistics

8/15/2012

2 Comments

 
The word for moon in Kiswahili is the same as the word for month. Of course. And the word for sun is the same as the verb "to know." Poetic.

A point of confusion, however, is that the word for a woman is the same as the word for wife. In my mind, this stirs an entire debate on the identity of a woman. Anyway, a single woman is referred to as a daughter, which has led to some humorous encounters when I've responded to pseudo marriage proposals by stating that, yes, I have a mom and a dad. 

The best language mix up is that the word for hot peppers is 'pilipili,' while the word for motorcycle is 'pikipiki.' I've amused several people by asking for motorcycles to accompany my eggs.
2 Comments
Carolyn Yohn link
8/14/2012 10:33:19 pm

Good luck with the Swahili studies! I tried my hand at it in college, and for me, the most confusing thing was the noun class concept. So many different ways to conjugate words!

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Jason Kerwin link
8/16/2012 07:12:06 am

My favorite bit of Bantu linguistics is that the Chichewa word for woman is "mkazi" - nearly identical to the Swahili word for work ("kazi"). This seems entirely appropriate to me. :)

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    Aine Seitz McCarthy

    International development, economics and some pretty ambitious ideas from a stubborn graduate student clinging to her sense of adventure.


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