BF Journal: 10/22 - 10/29

Apparently I cannot figure out how to get Blogger to do IPAish stuff.  So it does the symbols just fine but changes colors in response? 

10/22 – 10/24

The first few days of officially working toward a goal with Jula and Vigue are over (I am eliciting words in both for now) and I have more questions than answers.  So many questions.  Perhaps more accurately: so many things that I do not know yet what to with them yet or how to begin investigating them.

I am not sure how long I will continue with Jula alongside of Vigue.  I do however, intend to fill in my created dictionary with both, before moving on to serious syntactic and morphological elicitation.  I may limit my Jula to just dictionary stuff for now.  That said, I do have future plans for Jula brewing.

I am settling into a routine with my consultant.  Mornings and sometimes early afternoon is for elicitation.  Right now it is just dictionary words, but that will change soon enough.  For the rest of the day, I sit there and feel like a moron.  I mean, I do analysis.  Yes, linguisty analysis.

By analysis, I mean I stare at Praat and listen to my recordings attempting to figure out if I have any idea what I am doing with the tones of both languages.  Jula is simple enough in principle: one high tone and one low tone, but there is more going on than simple lexical tone.  The tones definitely interact and change depending on position and/or morphology (word parts such as suffixes and roots).  I have no idea yet, without eliciting more than words and two/three word phrases.  But I may not do that with this language on this trip anyways.

Vigue is not so simple and I am very hesitant to talk about it right now since I know very little.  However, this is a blog where I promised to keep you all updated.  Take everything with a gigantic bag of salt.  Basically, I have no idea what I am looking at.

What I mean is: I expect three tones because other Gur languages have three tones.  I also think I am hearing three tones when transcribing.  I hear a rising tone (usually word initially, which I am unsure about).  I can hear a falling tone, especially after rising ones and near the end of words (which might not actually be a falling tone, but just normal declination or movement to the target level).  I hear a level or mid tone too.  Sometimes my transcriptions match very well with Praat (I know, I know, sorry linguists) and other times they are way off.  Like, I hear a low level tone for a falling high to mid tone or something.  And I am not actually sure if there are three lexical tone levels in this language or if the different tone levels are because of declination since most of my transcriptions and subsequent Praat viewing show one pattern.  A rising tone, then a falling tone, then level and/or more falling tones (regardless of category (noun, verb, or adjective)).  I think I may be up against some sort of elicitation pattern, but then I get wildly different ones, every so often.  So, long story short, I am still working on it.

10/25 – 10/29

Well, I am still unsure about tones, but I think I have a handle on the phonetic inventory (sounds that appear in the language) and some basic phoneme (sound units that distinguish meaning) ideas with the exception of nasals and glides (w and y).  Like other areal languages, Vigue has nasal vowels (ex: ɔŋ, eŋ), nasal consonants (ex: ŋ & n), and prenasalized stops (ex: mb, nd).  This makes segmentation difficult sometimes.  If there is a nasalized vowel before a stop consonant beginning another syllable the nasalization often assimilates the place of articulation of the following consonant.  This is isn’t terribly unsurprising but it can be tough to know if it is a prenasalized stop or a nasal vowel.  For example it took me a while to figure this one out because natural speech is not all that segmented.  Note: my tone analysis is still garbage, so some of these are wrong and I don’t even know it yet.

jíndí wèŋwèlɔ̀  ‘curious’

Nasals can also get interesting because they might affect each other similarly.  I thought this next example was a geminate palatal nasal for a while.

nwɛ́ŋɲò  ‘wave (v)’

Vigue also has labiovelar co-articulated consonants, such as:

k͡pɔ́ŋbɔ̀  ‘give birth’

Thus making segmentation of a nasalized vowel, a syllable final voiced velar (coda consonants are rare but previously attested), and a voiced bilabial consonant particularly fun.

nɛ́ŋgbɔ̄  ‘point (v)’

I didn’t know if it was:

nɛ́ŋ.g͡bɔ̄  -or-  nɛ́ŋg.bɔ̄  -or-  nɛ́.ŋg͡bɔ̄

It’s the middle one.

I am also unsure if I want to call [w] and [j] glides or vowels.  My consultant likes both at various times so I am having trouble locating a pattern, if there is one.  I am starting to think there isn’t one since there are other vowel clusters.

dóɔ̀rɔ̄  ‘plan (n)’

However, my brain WANTS to categorize them all the same way.  Because I MUST FIND ALL THE PATTERNS!!!!

As for my daily life, our routine got disrupted yesterday (10/28) because Bakari’s son is sick.  He had to leave but everything seems to be okay now.  I did not go to the village with him because I am little early in my elicitation to have much of an agenda in the village.  However, I would like to go again soon.  Especially after I have started eliciting simple grammar.  I would like to get texts to work with as early as possible.

I cannot recall if I mentioned this previously, but I am going to the gym with Zaki two or three times a week.  And getting huge.  By huge I mean I am trying to not get out of shape.

My social circle is growing a bit.  As this happens I have noticed something.  Everyone wants to set me up with someone.  EVERYONE.  Apparently this is rather normal here, but I am very not used to it.  I thought about just telling everyone that I have a girlfriend back home (not actually true), but the guys I live with know better.

In other news, I want to kill all the flies in the solar system.  I am going to look for another racket since nobody else is.  Or maybe I will find a sweeter gadget with which to wage war. 

BF Journal: 10/15 - 10/21

10/15

Today was filled with fine tuning my first version of the dictionary that I will use.  I am excited and nervous for tomorrow.  I also sort of just want to get started, even I if I am not 100% perfectly prepared.

10/16

We went to Kanrankasso-Vigue today and met a potential consultant.  Jeff went off into the woods for a couple hours to do some plants with Minkailou and someone we met the first trip out there.  Bakari (our new friend), Zaki, and I went to the village market (which occurs every Thursday) and looked around.  Then we went to a sort of bar-ish place in the village and had a couple brews, ate some goat (NOT BABY GOAT), and waited for Jeff to return.

Bakari looks to be about 18 and has a pleasant disposition.  We made the arrangements to bring him back to Bobo for a few days to see how it goes.  After he got settled this afternoon I did a short session with him where I elicited a few words in Jula and in Vigue, to show him how it goes.  Jeff did a few animals and plants with him after.  Tomorrow will be my first chance to really see what he knows.  And to dust off my ears a bit.  I do plan to elicit Jula and Vigue (or perhaps another language eventually) at the same time for my dictionary.  The grammar that I eventually write will be Vigue, obviously.

He seemed to understand that the process will start slowly at first and he’s cool with it.  I will test his ability to read and write in French (which is kind of weird for me to do) before we make any decisions.  If all goes well, you keep hearing about my adventures with Bakari.

We plan to go out tonight with our new guy, but he’s a bit of a strict Muslim, so no alcohol for him.  I wonder how this will go…

10/17

Day one with Bakari went pretty well.  We did the planned four hour elicitation session in the morning.  I grabbed words in both Jula and Vigue.  Somewhere in the third hour I started to feel like I couldn’t hear tones anymore.  Since it is very early on in the process, I am probably not hearing them correctly yet anyways.

I recorded the session, but I need to boost the gain next time.  Or use an external mic.  I brought one and a backup.  In the afternoon I took a look at some words in Praat to see how well I did.  I can almost hear all of my linguist friends cringing right now.  I JUST DID IT AS A GUIDE, OKAY?!  Actually, it was pretty encouraging.  According to the varying levels in Praat, I am pretty decent at Jula tones.  Less so in Vigue, but that is a three tone system, not a two tone one (like Jula).  Well, I think so.  However, my ear appears to be well trained enough to hear tone changes, but with words that contain several syllables: I seem to have difficulty getting the high, mid, and low tones correct.  I presume this will get better with time.  After looking at Praat this afternoon, I am almost certain I cannot hear tones now. 

Linguists can skip the next paragraph:

For those who have no idea what I am talking about with tones and Praat, I will explain.  Praat is an acoustic analysis software (and it is free).  It allows people to extract reasonably accurate measurements of certain acoustic phenomena.  Speech scientists have discovered some of the acoustic (sound wave) phenomena that correspond to certain differences in people’s speech.  One of them is called “fundamental frequency” or “F0.”  This is calculated by measuring how well successive glottal pulses (vocal fold vibrations) correlate with each other.  These vibrations will create sounds waves that are collectable by instruments (obviously).  It turns out that this is the signal that our brains turn into pitch.  It gets slightly more complicated since we perceive this signal logarithmically, but you can see this signal going up and down (visually) with a program like Praat.  For examples: you can see this signal going up and down when singers do scales and you can see it rise at the end of questions (for English speakers).  So anyways, that is what I was looking at.

I resigned myself to reading and writing for the rest of the night.  And I spent an hour downloading a clip of John Stewart talking about white privilege with Bill O’Reily.  I watched Jurassic Park with everyone toward the end of the night.  It was… longer than I remember.

10/18 – 10/19

 Jeff and Minkailou went to Karankasso-Vigue on 10/18 after lunch.  I worked on my tone recognition with Praat.  Sue me.  And again on the 19^th.  My consultant is really good at helping me with my transcriptions already.  I taught him a few IPA symbols and he is able to assist with my transcriptions.  His lexical knowledge in Vigue is a bit lacking, but I am concerned with getting the systems right and he appears to have sound intuitions for phonetic stuff.  Noun lists and such can be checked with older people.  He understands the grammar and is good at figuring out what I am after even if my French is not perfect (which it totally is not).  I will offer him the fulltime several month consultant/informant job.  If all goes well, I will be a working on a Vigue grammar before long.

In other news, the fly racket is busted.  I swear it was Jeff, not me!  The flies seem to immediately know and are much bolder.  They are advancing and I am losing the war.  I fear my days are numbered.  Someone find a way to send me some bullfrogs.

10/20

Bakari accepted!  Looks like I will working on Vigue.  We are going to Karakasso to meet with Jeff and Minkailou tomorrow to make arrangements!  I will try to recall snapping some pictures when I get a minute.

It is kind of exciting for some other reasons too.  The first is that I simply cannot find anything written on Vigue.  I have lost my access to most academic journals since leaving Dartmouth, so it is possible that something is out there, especially since I only did a cursory look.  However, I easily found info on Turka and Dogosé.  I might be legitimately starting from scratch!  It is also exciting because I have noticed some interesting phonological interactions.  I don’t want to spill the beans yet in case I am totally wrong, but I am already enjoying the process of picking apart the phonology (well, what little I have done so far).

10/21

We went to Karaknasso to make arrangements for Bakari to work with me over the next several months.  Everything went smoothly and he is back at the house with me.  I also met the guy who helped arrange everything in the village for me.  He is was very congenial.  I forgot his name though, sorry.  Apparently Bakari has some family in Bobo too, so I presume I will meet them at some point.

My plan, for at least the next few sessions, is to do more of the same work.  That entails grabbing vocab words in isolation (with my sort-of dictionary).  After this I am hoping to start constructing very simple sentences to get some idea about tonal interactions and other phonological processes not occurring in isolated words.  If I find anything cool, I will let you all know.

BF Journal: 10/8 - 10/14

10/8

Yup, coffee makes everything better.  Everything.  I am pretty sure after 7 weeks of no coffee: I went into a hyperactive attack mode.  I went running twice.  Who does that?  I couldn’t sit still and I worked on a little bit of everything today.  I could swear everyone was avoiding me today.

Not much new in the way of lexicon/language planning.  I am honestly still debating whether or not I should bother with a brand new dictionary or just adapt and older one.  Today was taking care of emails, side projects, and studying French.  One needs days like this.  Hopefully future house-cleaning days will not be under the dramatic effects of caffeine reintroduction.  Either way, they will be fewer when I commence my language elicitation.

10/9

Today was about the same as yesterday with a little progress in each of my side projects.  And I made plans for a day trip tomorrow to check out a Viemo village.

10/10

The trip to the Viemo (from now on referred to as Vigue, because that what the people who speak it call it) settlement went well.  We got some contacts for Jeff’s flora/fauna project and possible contacts in case I elect that language.

The place where people who speak Vigue live (Karankasso) is a conglomeration of many small villages.  This makes me curious for the potential for future sociolinguistc studies (non-linguists read: variation within a language).  The person Zaki and I chatted with today said that people who speak Vigue and come from different parts of the area do speak slightly differently.  I started imagining dialectology projects almost instantly.

Karankasso does happen to be the closest to Bobo of the places/languages I am considering.  That would make village trips extremely convenient.  Everyone in the villages (including children) speak the language.  And Jula.  The trouble will be finding a consultant who is educated in French as that is my contact/elicitation language.  I also need to be able to teach my consultant how to help me transcribe, once I devise a writing system.  This obviously implies already having the ability to read/write (in this area: that means French).

I still have some work to do figuring out which language will work best and if I can find a reliable informant.  But I think I will start probing this language first.  I am also not settled yet on my dictionary method.  My French gets better though.  And I pick up little bits of Jula, every so often.  My Jula side-project got side tracked so I can concentrate on my main business.  However, I am not exactly done with that.  Jula is the lingua franca (as I have mentioned) and I am trying to get a sense for what scholars have done with it.  I hope my future academic career (presuming I get into grad school) allows me the chance to work with it.

Anyways, that’s all very speculative at this point.

10/11

I decided to make my own dictionary.  I will do this for a few reasons:

1) I want to make my dictionary my way where I organize the content.  And I know what is inside it.

2) Jumping off that point, I am making one that is organized around semantic content.  Imagine a dictionary built and organized like an outline filled with subject matter sections (sort of like language textbooks).  That is my vision, time to make it happen.

3) Jeff’s Dogon dictionary will be helpful for sure, and I will pillage many entries from it.  However, I want one specifically for Gur languages and cultural nuances in Burkina Faso.

4) This dictionary can be used and updated by future members of this project who will likely work on Gur languages.

5) Practically nobody is an authority on Gur languages at the moment (according to Jeff), which might make this a good idea to establish a presence in this family of languages for future research.

I did a lot of dictionary construction today.  Like, I think I hate words now.  This might be a problem for a linguist.

10/12

Finished roughest sketch of dictionary, tons more to add, but the basic structure is in place.  I based it off a Comparative African Word List produced by SIL.  The work is boring for the moment, mostly consisting of hours of copying, pasting, and formatting.  But I will be glad that I did this.

10/13

Zaki arranged for me to meet a potential Vigue speaker on Thursday (10/16).  That is exactly two months after I left the U.S.  Perhaps that is an appropriate anniversary activity.  I am not ready with everything yet, but are we every really ready?  Well, I am definitely not. 

My readiness regarding the grammar outline is not where I want it to be.  But, I will be starting using my dictionary with the informant anyways, so I am not going sweat it.

10/4

Today I charged ahead and my dictionary skeleton is looking pretty sweet.  I have added much to the rough sketch and reorganized sections.  It is starting to sort of look like I wanted it to.  This work is unbelievably tedious, though.  Any future Gur scholars, who might use some version of this dictionary, you can thank my headache for this. 

Also, I am glad that I packed Ibuprofen.  But I have no chocolate or ice-cream, which help my headaches a lot.  Don’t send me those things though.  It won’t work out.  If you do, I will buy you a helmet.

Going to make it an early night on account of the headache and me not sleeping well the past few days.  I know it is possible that it is the result of the coffee.  I can stop drinking the coffee any time I want to.  But you can’t make me stop drinking the coffee.  The coffee is my precious. 

Goodnight world!