Lesson #2

Oh my is this language ever so difficult! Well, let's take that in stride, since my main resource for learning the language is still a book on Yaqui language structures.

After reviewing the phonology of Yaqui again this week, I found it not as daunting to produce some sample words. Honestly, I imagine that I am speaking the language in front of some really wise shaman (I very well might be generalizing here) and the sounds seem to come out a bit more naturally. Still, the abundance of glottal stops throws me off balance at times and I have to say English words with the glottal stop to get the sound just right again. By the way, Yaqui has high and low tones- I do not expect to master these yet- at least not until I get native speaker input (oral).

So what's new this week? Syntax! I now remember why I do not like syntax actually, and I think my approach (and possibly main resource) may be too heavily linguistics-based. That is, while the text gives detailed explanations of the language structure, I feel some elements are too advanced for my level and I am not learning relevant vocabulary for the most part (the examples are random sentences from a huge dataset).

Nonetheless, here are some grammatical elements I have learned about Yaqui:

It has a case system (yay for inflectional morphology!). I am not accustomed to working with a language that employs a case system to mark direct (accusative) and indirect (dative) object pronouns. Luckily, though my main source did not explicitly note the cases used, it was easily discernible from the examples. Noun phrase adjectives match in number (singular/plural) and case to the noun they modify. There is no gender marking.

-m is a plural marker
-k and -ta are direct object pronoun markers, where -k is used for adjectives and -ta for nouns.

Negation in Yaqui:

'é'e = no (used in response to yes/no question, for example)

kát = don't (used with negative imperatives)

káa = no/not (used with negative verb, adjective or adverb phrases)

Wh- Question words:

habé=sa = who?

hitá=sa = what?

hachin=sa = how?

hakún=sa = where?

Notice the "sa" interrogative clitic- these are mandatory. Otherwise, "habé" means a person, the "sa" makes it the interrogative. These wh- question words will be important to develop in order to meet my goal of conducting an interview in Yaqui.

Word Order
Object + Subject + Verb

As I said earlier, syntax and I don't jive so well. I think for my learning style and with the goals I set in the previous entry, I may have to look for a phrase book or a less grammar-intensive resource to work from. Also, the arrival of my Yaqui-English dictionary should help re-direct my focus in study. I am off to find some more realistic resources!

Lesson #2: Take note of your learning style: what and how you like to learn (and maybe more importantly, how you do not like to learn).

This week I have found my language learning to be too focused on the language structure, which I had original thought to be good (if I knew the structure, I could apply it more). However, as it turns out, with the goals I have set and the brutality of syntax-based learning, I believe I should re-direct my learning to a more phrase-based learning style and refer to the linguistic text when I want to derive the structure from a phrase I have learned. Otherwise, I feel I will just be learning random phrases based on the syntax I have learned, and not the other way around (which does not serve my vocabulary needs for conducting interviews and holding simple conversations).