Chichewa, a Beautiful language

Chichewa is a tonal language. What this means is that you have a good chance of being misunderstood at least in the beginning. For example the word mpeni can be pronounced with an upward lilt and means knife and with a downward lilt and means price. The accent is on the second syllable for both. There are no masculine of feminine words instead there are six different classes of nouns. Based on the class and whether the noun is singular or plural, the prefix to the verb stem changes. The prefixes and suffixes are the “spices” which make Chichewa such a “beautiful” and complicatedlanguage according to Bambo Tembo (Mr. Tembo) our teacher. We have learned 35 different forms of the word “this,” 17 of which indicate something very near, so close that I am in it or on it for example “this dance=gule uno”, “or “this hospital=cipatala cino” (which supposes I am taking part in it or in the building right at the moment. We have learned 18 forms of “that” and 17 forms of “which?” as well as 14 forms of “with that.”

Additionally verbs are never lonely. Things get added on to the beginning and the end of verbs until words need to be carefully dissected to be understood. Let me demonstrate. The sentence “In the future I will be a teacher also and I will not teach you” is: Kutsogolo ine ndidzakhalanso mphunzitsi ndipo sindidzakuphunzitsani. The course is called intense because we cover a chapter a day which means about 100 words a week. We have finished the present, present continuous, imperative, subjunctive, future, perfect and all negative tenses of these tenses. My translation is pretty good, my speaking is slow and my understanding of the spoken word is sparse. When I look at a word I can slowly dissect the parts but hearing it is tricky. Si (not) ndi(I) dza(signals future tense) ku + ni at the end (is the plural you) and then the vowel root phunzitsa (all vowels end with a) and you have it sindidzakuphunzitsani. There are some wonderful phrases such as to be angry, “psa intima,” which is literally to burn or be cooked in your heart. Another interesting phrase is “khuta nsima” which means to be full. Nsima is the food made from boiled fine corn meal. It is eaten at every meal and if you have not eaten nsima you have not eaten no matter what else you may have eaten that day. The term to be drunk is a combination of to be satisfied –khuta and beer –mowa. I have just returned from Tumekutana 2011 the PCUSA sponsored International African Woman’s conference on “Women as Agents of Peace, healing and reconciliation” in Kigali Rwanda followed by a three day trip to Houston for the Medical Benevolence Foundation board meeting so i am studying extra hard to catch up.