Monthly Archives: July 2008

Kanananana

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There are several ideophones in Siwu that have to do with silence. Here are a few examples:

mì-lo kanananana!
2PL-be.silent IDPH
(y’all) be silent kanananana!
a-rɛ kpooo-o?
2SG-sleep IDPH-Q
did you have a sound sleep?
lò-to lò-karɛ ɔ itɔ̃me a-ɣɛ à-to à-nyɔ mɛ gbigbini-gbi
1SG-PROG 1SG-ask 2SG:O message 2SG-stand 2SG-PROG 2SG-look 1SG:O IDPH-REDUP1
I’m asking you a question and you are standing looking at me gbigbinigbi!
ɔ̀-si mùnùmùnù
3SG-sit IDPH
he just sits mùnùmùnù (sickly without talking)

The implications of these four ideophones are different. The first one is perhaps the most general; it is often heard in requests for silence (esp. in the plural), but I’ve also heard it used to talk about the tranquility of the town. The second one, kpoo, is most commonly heard in the reply to the morning greeting lò yá mì ‘I greet you (pl.)’. It has a positive connotation of nocturnal silence and sound sleep. The other two both carry negative connonations: gbigbinigbi evokes a sulking silence, mùnùmùnù is silence of a more dim-witted, sickly type.

All this by way of announcing a scheduled period of radio silence during my two-month fieldtrip to Ghana from July to September 15th. I’ll be giving talks at the 26th West African Languages Conference in Winneba and the 2nd International Workshop on the GTM languages. The rest of the time I will be in Kawu, transcribing beautiful and sparkling conversation full of ideophones. In between times I may be able to post some snippets, but don’t expect too much — everything will be pretty much kanananana here. See you in September!

Zotero Sync Preview

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Exciting news for Zotero users: synchronization has arrived. After some months of closed beta-testing, a public Sync Preview version was released recently. This means that Zotero users can now automatically synchronize their libraries across computers and even across platforms.

Although there are still some minor wrinkles, the sync functionality works perfectly fine and there are some exciting new features, including the possibility to import thousands of Endnote styles. With the import functionality comes a handy style manager, another step towards an elegant, shared, and open source solution to citation styling. That’s two killer features in one release — impressive work by the Zotero folks.

Also note the following:

Before Zotero 1.5 ships, we will add functionality to allow users to synchronize attachments to their own servers or other storage space (and we’ll also provide a hosted storage solution for all Zotero users). [forum post by Sean Takats]

Do keep in mind that the current preview is a preliminary version intended for public testing; do not expect it to be bug-free. Always make a backup copy of your full Zotero folder and try the Sync Preview in a new profile (step-by-step instructions on the sync preview page). Easier yet, download Firefox 3 Portable and try out Zotero Sync Preview 1.5 on a copy of your library without risking data loss or profile mixups. If your workflow is fine without synchronization, my advice is to avoid the growing pains of the preview version and wait until the release of the official 1.5 version, which should follow within a few months.

Not sure what Zotero is? Check the website or read my review of it.

Kawu in January 1887

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The earliest description of Kawu (Akpafu) I have found so far is quite special in that it was written by an African in an African language. A German translation of it appeared in 1889 and can be found below. The original is a report of a travel made in early 1887 by David Asante. David Asante (1834-1892) was the son of a christianized chief in Akropong, and one of the first Africans to be trained in Basel. Together with a few unnamed white missionaries, Asante travelled throughout what is today the central Volta Region of Ghana, visiting Nkonya, Boem, Akpafu, and Santrokofi (amongst other places). He wrote down his experiences in Twi and sent the report to Basel, where it was subsequently translated into German by J.G. Christaller, one of the founding fathers of West African linguistics. The translation was published in 1889 in the transactions of the Geographische Gesellschaft für Thüringen zu Jena.

Kawu

Akpafu-Todzi in the late nineteenth century (the picture is from a later date than David Asante’s expedition)
Source: Staatsarchiv Bremen #7.1025-0077

According to the account itself, this was the first time that Europeans set foot in Kawu. I hope to be able to provide a full English translation later, but here are a few nice excerpts to start with:

We arrived in Akpafu somewhere around nine; the town is big, its main street wide. When we arrived, all of the townspeople flocked together to see us — even the smiths stopped their work — because there had never been a European there before. Had it depended just on them, we would have stayed for several days. They first led us to a place where we could refresh ourselves; from there we went to salute the king, an old, powerfully built man. (…) Their giant king was very amiable and wanted us to stay for several days; however, our schedule did not permit us to do so.
(…)
Of the people of Boem, these are the brightest. (…) Because of their ironwork, everything is well-organized; for people from all places come here to buy iron tools. (…) The diligence of these people, their hospitality, and their tranquil behaviour pleased us so much that we really came to love them.
David Asante, 1889.

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