je m'appelle l'amour.

So my Swahili teacher has little to no linguistic knowledge. She also has little experience teaching foreign languages...or teaching at all.

We started to learn about noun classes in Swahili. Nouns are arranged in sets which usually have distinct singular and plural forms expressed by different prefixes attached to common stems. There are a total of.. five sets of nouns with singular/plural pairs, and six more noun class sets with no distinct plural forms. The classes are determined by what "kind" of nouns the stems consist of. For example, Class one/two, M-/WA-, consist of nouns related to people. Another class would consist of nouns related to plants, and so on...

We learned the noun class one/two, M-/WA-. The general rule is, to make the noun stem singular, you add M- in front of it. To make it plural, add WA-. For example, m-tu, wa-tu 'person, people.'

My teacher added, "but when the stem starts with a vowel, add MW- to make it singular, and W- to make it plural."For example, mw-alimu/w-alimu 'teacher, teachers.'

Then I looked at the list of nouns in this class and noticed that some of these vowel-initial nouns didn't follow the latter rule. Say, wa-afrika 'africans' or wa-ongo 'liars.' Why isn't it w-afrika or w-ongo? I asked her.


And she didn't have an answer. -__- According to her, these were just "exceptions" that you gotta suck up.


However as a linguistics student, I was convinced there had to be a reason why there were certain exceptions to the MW-/W- rule.

So, out of curiosity, I did some research at the library to find the "rules" to the exception. I found some books on Swahili from a linguist's point-of-view. And I think I have found the solution:

(*reference from Swahili Language Handbook, by Edgar C. Polome and Swahili Grammar and Syntax by Alfons Loogman)

1. M- always becomes MW- before a class 1 noun that starts with a vowel.
...However there is ONE exception: Mume 'husband.' It is not mwume. This is the only exception with the singular form.

2. With the [wa] (also [ma] and [pa]) nominal class-prefixes, contraction occurs before initial /a/, /e/, and /i/ of the following word-stem.

i.e., WA- becomes W- in front of noun stems that start with a, e, or i.

The first thing to note is that the contraction does NOT apply to ALL VOWELS. It does not apply to /u/ or /o/. Therefore we can now justify:

mwongo --> waongo 'liars'
mwoga --> waoga 'cowards'
mwuzaji --> wauzaji 'seller'
mume --> waume 'husbands'

Please take note of that... and now, here is the EXCEPTION. Even if the word stem starts with /a/, /e/, or /i/, you still use WA- (no contraction) when:

(a.) the word stem is borrowed from a non-Bantu language

This explains:

mwingereza --> waingereza 'Englishmen'; from Portuguese ingles
...and other words pertaining to nationality (like waafrika)

(b.) the word is a verbal root, stem, or theme

This explains:

mwimbaji --> waimbaji 'singers'; from the verbal root imba 'sing'


3. Mwizi and wezi

So why does mwizi become wEzi (thieves) with an /e/?

This is because of this particular morphophonemic process in the Swahili language:

/a/ + /i/ --> /e/
(linguists call this a "reciprocal assimilation")

So the plural of mwizi is technically supposed to be 'wizi' or even 'waizi' (*see explanation below), but instead it becomes wezi with an /e/. This is simply because when /a/ meets /i/ (wa-izi), it becomes an /e/ (wezi).

An additional note... In the case of wezi (from WA + izi), native speakers are apparently no longer conscious of the connection with the verbal stem iba 'steal.' Look at the "exception" rule 2b. Since iba is a verbal stem, the plural should technically be "waiba." But I guess it was lost over time.





Aaaand so that's how I saved my Swahili class. I hope my classmates (mostly athletes that are frustrated with the teacher's inconsistency) appreciate the time I spent on this. Unfortunately I don't think this will be the last time... At least I'm teaching myself something.



SOD:


Polyester leggings with white floral details; grey. Made in Japan.

Please don't wear leggings with just a T-shirt and go to class. Please. Leggings are not pants. Wear leggings with a skirt or a dresss. And don't wear them with running shorts and Uggs, either.

Actually, don't ever wear Uggs. kthx.

Swatdi.


Some languages create words by borrowing words from other languages.


Japanese and Koreans love doing that. Borrowing English words.

I personally think there are too many katakana words in Japanese lately. Oh, most borrowed words are written in katakana.


Baskin Robbins 31 (saati wann aisukurimu, as they call it) in Japan is having a limited time offer of CHALLENGE THE TRIPLE right now. When you purchase a double scoop right now, ohmigod, you get another scoop for free! You get a triple scoop!


YEAH! CHALLENGE THE TRIPLE! チャレンジ　ザ　トリプル！


Great, except I hate it when they borrow words wrongly.


The word "challenge" implies that the task that you are facing is UNDESIRED. You challenge an opponent. You challenge a tough question. You challenge your fears.

challenge: n. difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it. (dictionary.com)

What Saatiwann means is, TRY the Triple. The word "try" is more neutral.

try: n. an attempt or effort. (dictionary.com)


I mean, is eating three scoops of ice cream that threatening? Maybe it is in Japan, lawl. But you don't want to scare yo customers, foo.


Unfortunately, substituting "challenge (チャレンジ, charennji)" for "try (トライ, torai)" in Japanese is stuck. And it's impossible to change it now.


I mean, come on Baskin Robbins. Try the Triple even alliterates, perfect for a promotion slogan.


I used to work at Baskin Robbins (here in the U.S.). Did you know they have an instructional video for employees on how to scoop ice cream? You're supposed to scoop it in an S shape.

And it took me a while to figure out that there are 31 flavors because you're supposed to be able to have a different flavor each day of the month.

Oooooh. (<--slow)


Our particular store had 32 flavors. I hated it when a smart-ass kid counted the flavors and told me, "OMG YOU HAVE 32 FLAVORS YOU LIED!"

Wanna slap kids like that.


And technically, we DO have 31 flavors (+1, flavor of the month). If we only had 30, that'd be lying.

So hah.


Challenge that argument, kid.

Jambo.

Did I really use buongiorno twice?

Yeah I lied about coming back soon. Apologies.



I wonder if this is morphology. It starts off as a creation of a new acronym.

"lol."


If you haven't noticed or I haven't told you yet, I hate the modern web language, including instant messaging lingos.

lol
brb
lmao
ur
wtf

Duh-buh-yoo tee eff is right. It's arrived to the point that some people use the lingos as acronyms. Acronyms happen when you pronounce word-initial abbreviations as words.

Scuba= Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
NATO= North Atlantic Treaty Organization
FEMA= Federal Emergency Management Agency

Abbreviations like U.S.A. aren't acronyms, unless you're weird and call the country Oosah.

As I mentioned, the latest additions:

lol= lawl= laugh out loud
brb= berb =be right back


Pleh, I don't know. I feel like the younger generation's ability to communicate is diminishing. I hate "Facebook" because it's so representative of such depreciation.

First of all, whatever you post on Facebook is treated almost as an actual conversation.

For example, the little "status updates." I once posted something about having a Threadless T-shirt design idea. And soon after, I see a friend; in real life, I mean. Not virtually on the site. She says:

"You said you have a Threadless design?"

And I think...I told you that? Oh, wait. She means on Facebook.

And it bothered me that her nuance implied that "saying" something on the internet and actually saying something verbally are roughly the same thing. It especially bothers me because what I "said" was something as impersonal as a "status update."


And examining the language of internet on the site itself.

"lol ya that's wut i thought lol"

The over-usage of this "lawl" figure bothers me. It's as if "lol" is a punctuation marking the beginning and the end of a statement. Like quotation marks.

How odd is that.

Just wrap you comment around with "lol" or "hahahahahaha" and you have gotten rid of the dangli-ness and the impersonalness of your comment? Is that it? Or do you just laugh that much?


It's strange.

If this keeps up, "lol" is going to become the first circumfix in the English language.

You know what affixes are, right? The smallest unit of a word (called morphemes) attached either at the beginning (prefix), end of the word (suffix), in between the word (infix), and around the word (circumfix). The concept of infixes and circumfixes sound strange to English speakers, but they do exist in other languages.

In the Austronesian language Tagalog, observe this verb formation with infixes:

sulat 'write'
s-um-ulat 'wrote'
s-in-ulat 'was written'

German uses circumfixes:

frag-en 'to ask'
ge-frag-t 'asked'

(Admittedly stolen from my LING2100 notes)



Well here's a possible evolution of the English verb formation with the circumfix "lol":

jump --> jumped --> have jumped --> loljumplol

Jump so much to the point that it's fucking funny.


"lawl."

Actually, that's not funny.

It's rather scary, in fact.