BF Journal: 12/10 - 12/18

12/10 -12/12

I am starting the home stretch for grad school applications.  After the 15^th, I will be (nearly) done.  I have three more due the 15^th.  I am very much looking forward to being done with this phase and being able to concentrate on my Viemoŋ project.  Jeff and the Malians (Minkailou and Oumar) will be leaving in early January.  After that it is just me, Zaki, Bakary, and our cook Valentine.  I will basically be able to do village trips when I want to and get some serious focused work done. I am desperately looking forward to this.  Not that I mind Jeff and company.  It is nice to have someone to speak English with.  However, more people always means more distractions.

I have started typing the text transcription that Bakary gave me.  I am about halfway done with that.  We also commenced doing a rewrite.  What I mean is: making another copy of what Bakary thinks is the best way to say what he did in the interview.  Eventually, we will do an extremely narrow (precise) phonetic transcription of everything in the interview.  I will let you know if anything interesting comes of that exercise. 

I did finish (I think) writing a paradigm for one adjective.  This may seem like a small task but it was nothing of the sort.  Some of the nouns I used like the word for ‘house’ were able to combine with the same adjective (but different morphology) in several different ways and still mean either the same thing or almost the same thing.  And not all nouns were able to use the same combinations (of forms) with the same adjective.  The result is a huge table for one adjective.  The suffixes look exactly like noun suffixes in some cases but not others.  This was becoming such a headache that I actually used text transcription as a way to take a break from it.  Yes, listening to the same passages over and over is more fun than dealing with adjectives.

12/13-12/16

As far a work is concerned I have continued with the text transcription.  I am actually enjoying this quite a bit.  I noticed some phonological interactions (certain speech sounds affecting others) that I had not noticed before.  It is slow going but it is very nice to see Viemoŋ written out.  The script we are using might not be final, but it is pretty close.  All I really need to work out is how precisely I want to mark nasal plosives, nasal vowels and palatal stops and affricates.  And eventually tones, but that is a longer process.  Incidentally, this might change how we spell the language name itself.  No big deal, I only spelled it this way on my NSF application and every graduate school application.

In the process of doing this, I am learning a bit of vocab, which is obviously nice.  My next phase will be working on a translation of Bakary’s (presumably phonemic) transcription.  Then, I will likely work on a narrow phonetic transcription on my own.  

I made a quick trip to the village with Bakary to see his sick son.  Everything is cool, but I had some internet connection issues the past couple of days.  My USB stick that connects to the cellular network is finicky sometimes.  This created some application issues, but I will survive.

Bakary gave Jeff and me decorative presents since I last updated you.  Here is a picture of mine.  I do not know specifically what to call it, but it adorns my desk, along with my usual mess of papers and random electronics cords.

I am happily at the end of my graduate applications season.  I am considering taking a real break afterward by going to work in the village for a few days before the holiday season.  It might be nice to get away from computer screens for a few days.  I have no plans as of yet for the holiday period, but we shall see what I come up with.

12/17 – 12/18

I am nearly done with translating my first text.  It can be quite a trying process.  Because we are so early in our collaboration (and because my French is far from natural), it can take 30 minutes to arrive at a good translation of one sentence.  However, the process is giving my some ideas which I will pursue later.

Again, I may visit the village again pretty soon.  My end to the grad school applications season had a rather anticlimactic ending.  But I did drink some afterwards (I did say I needed to gain weight, right?).

My day to day life in Bobo is relatively quiet.  I go the gym with Zaki regularly and head out with a friend once or twice per week.  It is nice having a routine. 

I do not have holiday plans at the moment, but I am not generally concerned about this.  If anything, I am relieved at the prospect of not buying presents or shopping.  Maybe I should go to field every winter…

How do you guys like this new look?