Current mood:	ecstatic
Entry tags:	south africa

Hee hee..
After being told that it would be pretty easy for me to learn Afrikaans with one of the profs going to South Africa next interim, you would think that I would be happy. Unfortunately, I have learned that Afrikaans comes from Dutch. (Something that everyone else seems to have known already...oh well) Now, I love languages of any kind, but who wants to learn a European based language for a trip to Africa??? So, in the list of something like 50 books from which they suggested we pick a couple to read over the summer, there were three about languages: Afrikaans, Zulu, and Xhosa. Pamela's eyes light up at the sight of "Xhosa". I have always wanted to learn a language with clicks. It turns out that this language not only has clicks, it is tonal. (Pamela does happy dance around the room).

Of course, the flaw with the grand plan of learning Xhosa is that I don't know anyone at all who speaks it--even in a not-really-a-relationship sort of way, such as my connection to the professor who speaks Afrikaans. But there is also good news! I used to think that the clicks were glottal clicks, which is an area of my anatomy I have no idea how to move let alone have it make a click. However, as wikipedia so kindly informed me: "Xhosa has a relatively simple set of vowels, but it is rich in uncommon consonants. Besides normal pulmonic egressive sounds, it has three basic clicks in addition to ejectives and implosives. The first is the dental click, which is made with the tongue on the back of the teeth, and is the sound represented in English by "tut-tut" or "tsk-tsk" used to reprimand someone. The second is the lateral alveolar click, which is made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and is similar to the sound used to call horses. The third is the postalveolar click, which is made with the body of the tongue on the roof of the mouth. Each click occurs in six varieties." This sounds tons easier than what I thought it was! And I can do two of the clicks already!

By the way, Wikipedia absolutely rocks for learning about obscure languages.

So, anyway, I am investigating books that come with tapes...not to mention looking for anyone who knows anything about resources for the language, and hopefully (fingers crossed) I'm going to start learning this language!