{"id":578,"date":"2013-07-11T14:08:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T18:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/?p=578"},"modified":"2013-07-11T14:08:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T18:08:27","slug":"digging-in-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/2013\/07\/11\/digging-in-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Digging in Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago we decided to pen up our chickens.\u00a0 During a conversation about why, I asked my language helper how to say they were digging up our plants.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201csay: tataht\u00e1h hiyero.\u201d They dug ugly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeriously?\u201d I thought, \u201ca word that sounds like a fake drumroll?\u201d\u00a0 I dutifully copied her until she was satisfied and later wrote the word in my notebook with the annotation \u201cto dig.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
We penned up our chickens because they were digging ugly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week some government workers are putting in a village septic system and have a huge backhoe making noise right next to our house.\u00a0 Some ladies came to visit and in order to make conversation (and practice at the same time) I commented, \u201cTat\u00e1h hiyero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing.\u00a0 They looked at me for a second and so I repeated the phrase.\u00a0 One lady said, \u201cWho\u2019s burning?\u201d Um\u2026what?\u00a0 I wondered if I\u2019d said too many drumrolls or not enough. \u00a0Did I not pronounce the \u201ch\u201d clearly?\u00a0 Hard to know, considering it\u2019s a puff of air.\u00a0 Should I have been more puffy?\u00a0 Or was my breath distracting them?<\/p>\n

After a few tries, I gave up and asked my friend how to say that they were digging.\u00a0 \u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201cYou wanted to say \u2018takoyontik\u00e1.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I filed this away under \u201cfigure out later\u201d and moved along in the conversation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This machine was "making a hole"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next day I was ready to try again.\u00a0 I looked up \u201cto dig\u201d in my notebook, made sure I had the right amount of drumroll, practiced the puffs, and was ready to go.\u00a0 A new lady arrived to visit and I eagerly told her that the men were digging ugly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is?\u201d she answered with a wrinkled brow.\u00a0 I pointed to the men with the big machine, who were by then going along next to our fence making a trench for a pipe.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201cyou want to say \u2018tawahwantinem\u00edl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I wished I knew how to say \u2018oh brother\u2019 in Nahuatl.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The workers here "went along scratching" a trench<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It seems that what I categorize in my mind as \u201cdigging\u201d is a variety of different actions to the Nahuatl.\u00a0 What the chickens were doing was something like \u201cturning over dirt\u201d, much like you do when you plant a garden, but not to be confused with the verb for \u201csoftening\u201d dirt.\u00a0 What the workers were doing the first day was \u201cmaking a hole\u201d and the machine was just sitting there working on it.\u00a0 The last day the workers were \u201cscratching\u201d a ditch and they were moving as they did it, so you would say they were \u201cgoing along scratching.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t believe I tried to say they were digging.\u00a0 How embarrassing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago we decided to pen up our chickens.\u00a0 During a conversation about why, I asked my language helper how to say they were digging up our plants. \u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201csay: tataht\u00e1h hiyero.\u201d They dug ugly. \u201cSeriously?\u201d I thought, \u201ca word that sounds like a fake drumroll?\u201d\u00a0 I dutifully copied her until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[705],"tags":[6400,1571],"class_list":{"0":"post-578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news-article","7":"tag-funny-things","8":"tag-language-learning","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}