Linguistic Lesson of the Day

Another long weekend starts tomorrow, four days off. I’ll probably be writing a lot and taking photos, and I think I’ll do work tomorrow from home. I think I get to Skype with Mama and Papa Smith this weekend! That’ll be nice to see their sweet faces. This is the last weekend that Lena, Perez, and Thom will be here which is a big fat bummer. There are a bunch of new people in the dorms, which is neat, but also intimidating because they all know each other and work with each other and FRENCH FRENCH FRENCH. (PS the photos in this entry are just random ones I’ve taken, nothing to do with the text).

This is the lake by Vembo, where I go to work. This was early in the morning, probably eight or so. The dry season has a lot of fog cover like this that may or may not burn off by the evening. Gamba actually means fog in a local dialect. To the right is a papyrus marsh.

Some people at the dorms including Lena and Perez taught me a bunch of things about the languages/ethnicities of Gabon tonight. I guess you could technically look this all up on Wikipedia, but this is more fun and interesting even if the possibility for factual error is higher.

Selling fish or maybe meat of the day.

Lena, who is Punu, told me about the main ethnicities and where they are predominantly from. Side note, I asked her if you can tell just by looking at somebody which ethnicity they are, and she said primarily no because they’ve all been so mixed for so long. The only indication might be someone’s name. Punu are mostly in the South, where her parents are from, in the Ngounie and Nyonga Provinces. Obamba and Teke are in the Eastern part of Gamba, though she didn’t know exactly what provinces. The last two presidents, Omar Bongo and his son Ali Bongo, are Teke. Lena said that there is some tension between Teke and Fang, which is expressed well in politics of the country because the biggest critics to the current Teke president are Fang. Apparently one of Gabon’s biggest secrets that isn’t really a secret is that Ali Bongo is Nigerian and was adopted into the Bongo family to be Teke. Obviously I have no idea if this is true or not.

Little dog on the plantation.

Myene are in the Western province of Ogooue-Maritime, in cities such as Port-Gentil. She said that they’re often lighter skinned, and that even though it’s totally unconfirmed and could be totally false, the story goes that when Europeans initially came to Gabon for slave trade, the lighter-skinned coastal Myene people helped the Europeans and sold off their neighbors to save themselves. Apparently sometimes Myenes are treated differently because of this and because they try to “act like white people.”

Lastly there are Fang, and they are possibly the largest ethnicity here. They are regionally from the North in Libreville and Oyem (major Gabonese cities) in the Woleu-Ntem and Estuaire Provinces. Perez, who is Fang, told me about bilop which is the Fang word for non-Fang people. Lena said that the very first president was Fang, and that after independence he wanted Fang to be the national language instead of French because then it would be an indigenous language. Evidently the other tribes didn’t agree.

I asked Perez and Lena to write down some words in Fang and Punu, respectively. Keep in mind that this is English translated into Gabonese French translated into a local language, so the phrases and words aren’t exactly literal translations. But it’s interesting nonetheless:

In English: “Where are you going?”

In French: “Ou va tu?”

In Fang: “Wa ke ve?”

In Punu: “A wu ki wendi?”

In English: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

In French: “On se voit demain.”

In Fang: “Bi yenane okiri.”

In Punu: “Ik muressi.”

In English: “Thank you.”

In French: “Merci.”

In Fang: “Akiba.”

In Punu: “Diboti.”

In English: “I will go to sleep.”

In French: “Je vais dormir.”

In Fang: “Ma ke dzobossi.”

In Punu: “Gni ma kot.”

I just thought it was interesting to visualize the syntax. The way that it was written in my notebook was neat because you can see which words correspond to which. Lena said that different languages in the same region often share vocabulary, and it’s possible to understand each other. But Punu (south) to Fang (north) has nothing in common. Also, if I understand them correctly, Punu has a lot of conjugations similar to English (sort of) but Fang doesn’t have any conjugations so once you know the basics it’s pretty easy to learn. For example saying “I am walking” and “I will go to sleep” both use “Ma ke” for “I am” and “I will.”

Sometimes people see our camera traps and figure out that its a camera. This one had me laughing so hard when I was going through the photos. It actually inspired me to make little informational cards to put on the cameras so that people know what its there for.

It’s crazy how many layers of language I’ve been engulfed in. Hanging out with the Maarseveens (Thom’s family) has me surrounded by rapid Dutch; life is in French on the daily, English in my head and with Lena, and now some indigenous phrases to compliment it all. Oof. But to be fair all I’ve learned of Dutch so far is “ja, hoor,” “goedemorgen,” and “ik ga slappen” which means “yeah, sure,” “good morning” and “I will go to sleep.” As soon as Tina tells me a word in Dutch it falls out of my ears. But I’ll keep trying anyways. It was Thomas’ birthday on Monday and so they put up this banner that said Happy Birthday in Dutch but it looked like some variation of “gefilte fish” to me.

Anyways there is your linguistic lesson for the day, now you can tell everyone that you will go to sleep in five different languages. At the moment there is something in my bed eating me alive each night and I have 18 big red bug bites primarily on my right leg. If I wake up with 19 I am bombing my room with insecticide and then moving to the Maarseveen’s house. Bonne nuit, mbemba allou, goedenacht and goodnight from Gamba!

Thom and I checking the camera trap at the golf course.