Since the beginning of May, our family has been living in our new home in the Amdu tribe. Even though our house is not totally completed, it is at the point where we are calling it completed for now. The remaining things that need to be done are on a list (a rather long list!) that we will chip away at on the weekends.
On June 1st, we turned our attention away from building and toward beginning to learn the language and culture of the Amdu people. Culture/language acquisition (CLA) is a huge job that will require our dedicated focus for at least the next 2 years. Since this will be a major part of our lives, we wanted to be sure that we clearly share with you what CLA will look like for our family and how we plan to learn this unwritten language!
Many of the people in our village know at least some Pidgin, one of the trade languages of PNG, so we are able to use that as a bridge to learning the Amdu language. We hear someone say a word or phrase and then we ask “what does that mean in Pidgin?”. Sometimes they can clearly tell us. Other times it seems that there is no exact translation. To begin with, we did a lot of listening and not much repeating – just tuning our ears to the sounds of the language.
Anything that we write down, we write phonetically – a different symbol for each sound – so when we look back at what we have written, we don’t have to guess how it is pronounced. Recording phrases or capturing language on video is essential so we can go back and listen again and again to native speakers as we are practicing. We want to sound natural as we speak this language so that means mimicking them, not ourselves.
It may seem obvious, but in order to learn Amdu we have to spend time with the people – lots of it! In their homes (which are built up off the ground and are often kind of rickety), in their gardens (which are on steep mountain slopes and sometimes an hour or two hike away from the village), around their cooking fires in the center of their houses (they cook their taro and sweet potatoes right in the fire which gives them a yummy smoked taste), on the airstrip (where people often congregate in the late afternoon after they have returned from their gardens), at our house (when they come by to visit), on the trails and in the jungle (as they are hunting or traveling to a neighboring village)… all the things that are normal for them to do we must learn to do and experience with them. We have to listen to what they are talking about, record things or write them down, practice the words and phrases that we are hearing and then, later, work on using what we are learning in real-life conversations.
We are not learning Amdu so we can merely carry on casual conversations about surface topics. We need to be able to communicate with the people about very detailed and deep issues. In order to clearly and accurately be able to translate God’s word into this language and then teach so the people understand it, we must know the intricate details of the language.
Learning this language and culture is going to be a big job. Probably one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. We don’t have textbooks to use or a dictionary in which we can look up a word or its meaning. Our “classroom” is everyday life with the Amdu people. The culture here is very different from back home in America. In order to understand the Amdu people and their language, we are going to have to “give up”, at least for a time, some of our Western ideas and ideals. And that is not necessarily easy or comfortable for us to do. We have a great example in our Savior Jesus Christ – He gave up the glories of heaven, did many things He had never done before, and endured much hardship to live on earth among the people for whom He came to die. Please PRAY for us as we balance language learning and family life in this new culture. We are Christ’s ambassadors to the Amdu people – and in His strength we want to be good ones!