Newsletter - July 2004
Welcome home!
Thank you! It is good to be back! It now feels like I've never been away, but, as some of you have already found out, I have quite a sizeable collection of photos to remind me that I did in fact spend the last twenty months or so in Tanzania!
A lot of the participants at the grammar workshop were people I had met at the January phonology workshop and it was great to see them again. It is hard to explain quite how heartening it was to be around so many people who were eager to have the Bible in their own language. It is one thing to be looking from the outside and seeing the need for the Bible to be translated into another person's mother tongue - as a mother tongue speaker of English, that is always my perspective. But it must be quite another thing to be looking at Bible translation from the inside and passionately wanting to see the Bible in your own mother tongue.
Also very well, thanks, but it has often been on the back burner over the last twenty months so I'm definitely not as far along in my understanding as I had hoped to be by now. I'm happy with the progress I've made so far though, and at least I know what I'll be up to when I get back to Tanzania later this year!
What did you get up to in your last couple of months in Tanzania?
It seems a long, long time ago now, but I dimly recollect that when I wrote my last newsletter, I was just about to go to a grammar workshop for the Bible translation project in Mbeya… That workshop went very well, and somehow turned out to involve even more work than the first one I went to back in January. I spent most evenings typing up the data we were collecting during the day (see photo below!) and by the end of the three weeks, a very rough attempt at grammar sketches of the two languages I worked on had begun to take shape on my computer.A lot of the participants at the grammar workshop were people I had met at the January phonology workshop and it was great to see them again. It is hard to explain quite how heartening it was to be around so many people who were eager to have the Bible in their own language. It is one thing to be looking from the outside and seeing the need for the Bible to be translated into another person's mother tongue - as a mother tongue speaker of English, that is always my perspective. But it must be quite another thing to be looking at Bible translation from the inside and passionately wanting to see the Bible in your own mother tongue.
And how are things in the Sandawe project?
Very well indeed, thank you! Would you like to ask how the phonology write up is going?!
Of course, when I say that the write up is completed, I don't mean to say that it contains all there is to know about the sounds in the Sandawe language - that kind of comprehensive study would take several lifetimes to finish. But, hopefully, enough has been done to aid both understanding the grammar of Sandawe and working out how to write the language most effectively.
Go on then, "How is the phonology write up going, Helen?"
It isn't going any longer - it is gone! Done! Finished! Completed! Can you tell that I'm rather excited about this?!Of course, when I say that the write up is completed, I don't mean to say that it contains all there is to know about the sounds in the Sandawe language - that kind of comprehensive study would take several lifetimes to finish. But, hopefully, enough has been done to aid both understanding the grammar of Sandawe and working out how to write the language most effectively.
So how is the grammar work then?
Also very well, thanks, but it has often been on the back burner over the last twenty months so I'm definitely not as far along in my understanding as I had hoped to be by now. I'm happy with the progress I've made so far though, and at least I know what I'll be up to when I get back to Tanzania later this year!
You mentioned working out how to write Sandawe most effectively - any progress on that front?
Yes, quite a lot, I think. My colleagues, Daniel and Elisabeth Hunziker, have run two more literacy classes since I last wrote, and then in June, they organised a meeting of Sandawe speakers from different geographical areas to discuss some of the finer points about Sandawe spelling. Various decisions about spelling rules were made at that meeting so now all we have to do is remember to follow them…
So what are you doing now that you are in England? Holidaying?!
Er, nope! At the moment, I'm taking a course in cognitive linguistics (further explanations on request!) at the Wycliffe Bible Translators centre near High Wycombe. Then I'll be doing some teaching on an introductory linguistics course there for two weeks. After that, I will actually be on holiday for a while, and then I'll be going on another course, this time in Dallas (yep, the one in America!).
PS The photo on the right is of me with my Sandawe language helper, Nestori Michaeli.
With love,
Helen
With love,
Helen