One of the purposes of going to Cameroon this march is to attend the second “National Symposium on Cameroonian Languages”, at the University of Dschang, in Dschang, Cameroon. I assume it may not be obvious to you why this is a good thing, so I’ll lay out some of my Read more…
As I talk with people about our Wycliffe ministry, I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, which makes me feel something like a politician. So to make my speech more clearly above board (for my conscience, but also for anyone else who might ask), I thought it good to Read more…
Have you ever wondered how people make their first alphabet? Starting this summer, we are giving people a taste of Bible Translation work in Africa, through small group meetings designed to be interactive and engaging. We introduce people to the language work we do with Wycliffe Bible Translators, in three Read more…
In an earlier post I mentioned work I was doing to show the importance of tone in the Bantu D30 languages. Here I’d like to go through the conjugation of one verb in one language, to show how tone works, in relationship to consonants and vowels. To start with, here Read more…
For those of you that have followed my analysis of sound systems in (so far) unwritten languages, I’m sure you’ve already heard enough about tone and vowels. So today, I thought I’d write about consonants! Language sound systems generally store information in three places. We know consonants (with obstructed airflow) Read more…
I just finished drafting the line “good progress on dictionaries for each of the languages” for the newsletter we’re hoping to put out in the next couple days, and I realized I’m not sure that it is clear to all why that is a good thing. So here’s a bit Read more…
Today I started printing the posters I’m making for my trip to DRC at the end of June. They should be large enough to be seen by people a long distance away, so they can be used in large classrooms/venues. The last time I was in Nia-nia, they did some Read more…