So much meaning in life is determined by context – by considering the surrounding information, rather than just the part at which you’re staring. This is an indispensable principle in Bible interpretation: it is critically important to know who is being addressed (and why!) before applying a verse to your own life. This week, our team was surprised to discover just how deeply this principle would also apply to our study of the Cherokee language…
Many words in Cherokee have multiple meanings. The word for ‘fork‘ also means ‘needle‘ or ‘nail‘, and there is no difference between ‘elbow‘ and ‘shoulder‘. Referring to the time of day is complicated when ‘sun‘ means ‘moon‘. Tales of butterfly-hunting might be misinterpreted when your audience pictures you chasing after elephants! And you’d better be careful when asking someone to borrow an egg… they might think you’re asking for one of their sons!
Looking at how some words are constructed leads to more hidden meaning. It may not surprise you to learn that the Cherokee word for ‘flag’ means ‘waving thing’, that ‘hammer’ means ‘banging thing’, or that ‘desk’ means ‘writing place.’ Yet other words built on these examples reveal important details about Cherokee culture, showing how they created words for previously unfamiliar objects. A couple examples? ‘Door’ means ‘entering place’, the word for ‘lock’ means ‘snapping turtle’, and the word for ‘ladder?’ Try, ‘fire-putter-outer.’
Cultural discoveries just like these will be critical to clearly teaching the Gospel in a previously unreached language. However, a more fundamental discovery this week may be the primary reason Cherokee was chosen as the study language for our class!
Cherokee is a language in transition; changing from older forms to something heavily influenced by English language patterns. Longer words are shortened in casual speech, meanings carried by tone are being simplified, and speakers of the language are oblivious to it all! The result is that a word recorded in casual conversation (our source for most data) usually doesn’t match an intentionally ‘careful’ pronunciation (when we try to learn words one a time).
This has resulted in most of the difficulty our team has faced these past four weeks, and created more catch-up work than we thought possible! Yet the insight we’ve gained into interpreting ‘changing’ languages has been incredibly valuable. Any group of people we work among in Mexico is likely to experience similar changes in their language, and learning how to deal with it now means months (if not years) of time and effort saved on the mission field.
If our goal in Oklahoma this fall is to write a perfect paper describing the Cherokee language, our class is in trouble. Time is not our ally! But, if our goal here is to be better prepared for real-world ministry… I see more of that goal achieved every day. Praise the Lord!
Sharon Guldjord (Grammie/GiGi says
I’m so proud of you! What interesting work. Thank you for sharing, and I’ll be praying
you through the whole way! The picture of Auntie Taylor and the children is adorable!
Titus’s haircut is great! He looks like a little man and even more like his Daddy!!! Laynie
is looking more and more like her Mommy! They are very handsome and bright children.
You did well! Love you all, Grammie/GiGi