Times change, people change, and the way people talk changes too. One of the struggles missionaries face as they learn and analyze a language is understanding the difference between they way people normally talk and the more proper, correct way to say things. If you think about the English language, there is a huge difference between the proper, grammatically correct speech you might here on the news and the way normal people talk everyday.
This becomes a problem when, as you learn a language, you hear the same word pronounced differently depending on what’s around it. Take our word ‘going’- pretend you are trying to teach a foreigner how to say that. You would carefully enunciate each sound: ‘go-ing’. But use it in a sentence, and it might sound something like this: I’m gonna go t’ th’ store. Would that sound like the same word to an oustider? Probably not.
We are facing this problem as we analyze Cherokee, and we’ll face it when we’re learning language in Asia-Pacific. So what do we do? We want to know how people really talk, but we also want to understand the ‘correct’ way to say things. So as we are working with the Cherokee language, we are describing both; we write down a word as they naturally say it in a sentence, then next to it, we put the careful pronunciation of it, and then put what it means.
This whole idea has been my biggest challenge this week. Even the way this language course is being done is changing; my group (myself and two other guys) is the first group to describe Cherokee words in this way as far as NTM’s linguistic course is concerned.
Alisha has been working on making baby shoes for friends this week. She put a picture of a pair she finished on her facebook page, if you want to see them. I am personally very impressed with her work. I’m still glad I married her. It’s been raining the last couple days, but the kids don’t mind. They’ve got a nice porch to run around on. Elroy has a bike here, and there is also a trike. There is chalk with which to color the sidewalk, adults to run circles around and friends to play with. So the kids stay busy. Tonight, Alisha and I are going out. We are excited to get away for the evening.
Praise:
-We are enjoying our time here and growing through the challenges we face.
-The kids are doing well and they do say the darndest things at times. We are thankful for them.
Prayer:
-Staying caught up with my Cherokee ‘homework’.
-We hoping to visit family in Texas after we finish up the course here. You can pray that it works out financially.
–The McIlroys