{"id":1435,"date":"2019-06-07T18:46:03","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T23:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/?p=1435"},"modified":"2019-06-07T18:46:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T23:46:03","slug":"languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/2019\/06\/07\/languages\/","title":{"rendered":"Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"\"<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This recent trip to Senegal\/Guinea\/Guinea-Bissau\/France was full of different languages. You see, I started in a city in Senegal where people mainly speak Wolof <\/span>and French<\/span>.\u00a0 I speak French<\/span>, but not Wolof<\/span>.\u00a0 It would be great to learn it sometime, but at the moment I only know a few greetings, etc.\u00a0 And I was only there for a week this time before I moved on to Guinea, so remembered some that had been hidden away in my brain, but didn’t learn anything new, I don’t think.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

In the parts of Guinea we were in, I wished that they spoke better French<\/span>, but they moreso spoke Susu<\/span> and the N language<\/span>, neither of which I speak.\u00a0 Susu<\/span> is related to Jula<\/span>, so there were some words and expressions that were easier to understand.\u00a0 I decided to work on Susu<\/span>, though people still insisted that I learn at least a few phrases in the N language<\/span>.<\/p>\r\n

After 3 or 4 days we left Guinea for Guinea-Bissau.\u00a0 The main languages there are Creole <\/span>and Portuguese<\/span>, again, neither of which I speak.\u00a0 I was starting to feel not-so-very-smart-at-all, not speaking any of these languages!\u00a0 But at least they spoke Susu<\/span> where we were first in Guinea-Bissau, so I figured I’d focus on that, since by now I had a few expressions, a few nouns, a few verbs, etc., down.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

However, the next day we continued north, farther from the border with Guinea, and there they didn’t speak Susu<\/span> anymore!\u00a0 We tried to speak to an authority we needed to speak with, but it didn’t go well as we waited for our translators (who had to deal with a flat tire).\u00a0 My colleague Leah and I tried all the languages we knew (English<\/span>, French<\/span>, Jula<\/span>, Susu<\/span>), and the authority tried the languages she knew (Portuguese<\/span>, Creole<\/span>).\u00a0 I think I got the most across when I tried the few words of Spanish <\/span>I remembered (since Spanish <\/span>is close to Portuguese<\/span>), mixed with Jula<\/span>\/English<\/span>\/French<\/span> to fill in the gaps.\u00a0 But actually what was best was when our translators returned and were able to speak to her well. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I realized I needed to at least learn a few greetings in Creole<\/span> or Portuguese<\/span>!<\/p>\r\n

In the picture above, I was trying to ask the older gentlemen in the middle some questions for our PGA (People Group Assessment), but they only spoke the N language<\/span>, Creole<\/span>, and Portuguese<\/span>.\u00a0 So I asked the questions in French<\/span>, they were translated into Susu<\/span> by the guy in the black shirt sitting next to me, then were translated into Creole<\/span> by the guy in the winter jacket (don’t worry – it was hot that day) on the other side of me.\u00a0 The N men then understood and responded in Creole<\/span> (though Creole <\/span>was their second or third language), then the man in the winter jacket translated their responses back into Susu<\/span> and the man in the black shirt translated them back into French<\/span> so I could understand their responses.\u00a0 Crazy!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

I was grateful that after that we turned south again and Susu<\/span> (and every once in a while even French<\/span>!) became more common again.\u00a0 It’s amazing how wonderful it feels to be able to communicate in a language you’ve been “learning” for a week (with help from knowing Jula<\/span> already) after you’ve been surrounded by ones that you don’t know at all!<\/p>\r\n

So there you have it.\u00a0 I was in West Africa for less than a month, and would have really benefited from learning 5 different languages during that time: Wolof<\/span>, Susu<\/span>, N language<\/span>, Creole<\/span>, and Portuguese<\/span>.\u00a0 I know that I can learn languages quicker than some people, but that’s still a bit much!<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This recent trip to Senegal\/Guinea\/Guinea-Bissau\/France was full of different languages. You see, I started in a city in Senegal where people mainly speak Wolof and French.\u00a0 I speak French, but not Wolof.\u00a0 It would be great to learn it sometime, but at the moment I only know a few greetings, etc.\u00a0 And I was only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}