On a lighter note, I finally went to pick up my drum and it's just beautiful. I'll post pictures soon. I had a mini drum lesson before I left the cultural center, because just about everyone you meet wants to teach you something, whether it's drumming or the local languages or some other thing.
Now jumping back to more unrelated things (my writing organization and transitions have really plummeted)... I'm an anthropology student and my main interest is in cultural anthropology so it's clearly very exciting to be here observing cultural differences, but I've found that the linguistic differences are just as interesting. People structure a lot of sentences very differently and it's obviously as a result of the mixing of so many different types of languages and because English is not generally the first language for most people (although they do learn it at a young age and I haven't met a single person who can't speak it, aside from some small children). I've noticed some pretty cool linguistic differences from listening to some of the guys that I hang out with (don't worry dad, I'm not married to any of them). For example, when they want to explain something and set themselves apart from something they'll say "he goes to church. Me, I don't go to the church," with a emphasis on the word me. Also, their kinship terms can have very different meanings than American ones because of the kinship system present here, where extended family is very important (versus the nuclear family system of the U.S.). So people will call older women "auntie" and men "uncle," and every girl and boy is your sister and your brother, even if you're white. It's all inclusive. Everyone's family. They say "junior brother" and "senior brother" instead of older and younger.
There are also some pretty interesting ways of getting people's attention. Usually they just go "tssss" to call you over, and it isn't a rude thing, it's just a way to alert you to them, and the sound carries surprisingly well. You can always hear it and react right away. They will say "bra bra," which means "come, come" to get you to come over. That's not really a linguistic difference, because it's just a different language altogether, but it helps demonstrate the degree that local languages are mixed in with English. Also, during conversation they will say "hullo" to get your attention, and "you get me?" or "you understand?" to make sure you understand. They also say "are you sure?" a lot. But perhaps one of the most interesting features of Ghanaian communication is the sounds they'll make in response to things. It's not something I can really type, but usually it's "oh!" with some kind of emphasis and tone change depending on what it means. They will say it when the price is too high, they will say it when they're joking around, they'll say it when you've said something shocking and so on and so forth. I think it could be used for just about any situation.
Finally, the men (and I can only comment on them because I have not noticed this with the women) have a couple sayings that they always use. They will say "it's nice to be nice" in a lot of situations, usually if they're asking to "take you as a friend." Also they'll say "sharing is caring" all the time. And so I'll end there, as I have shared enough information as my brain will allow for the moment.
Posted by lib at October 11, 2008 02:19 PM