How do you learn a tribal language and know what people are really saying?

When I read the first line of Richard Rees’ scholarly and insightful article on learning the culture and language of a remote tribal group, a deluge of memories flooded my mind. He has the procedure down just right, but in my experience, things can be a bit more complicated.

"You can learn words, but without knowing the thought patterns of the people you may not understand what’s being said. Learning a language is directly tied to understanding the worldview and culture of a remote, unreached people group," Richard wrote about his language learning experience among the Pwo Karen people in Thailand.

"So you have to learn the language in the culture of the people. That means getting out in the community, getting to know the people and what they do."

My experience among the Malinke people of Senegal tells me that’s not as easy as it sounds.

I woke up groggy and confused. Why was I awake in the silent, black night? Then I heard it. Thump, thump, resounding through the night, time after time. Then I realized Malinke ladies were up very early to prepare breakfast. All over the village they were pounding rice so that they could prepare the thick tasteless gruel they called monoo -- their daily morning sustenance before going out to the fields. How could I relate to their difficult, stressful life? I realized that learning the culture and language of the people was the only way we could ever connect on a personal basis. But how?

First you need to plan what you want to learn. Pick an everyday event like pounding and cooking rice and go and participate in the event.

Oops, first problem. How early would I have to wake up to help with the morning ritual of rice pounding? Maybe I could help someone who didn’t have enough rice pounded for the supper meal. That sounded better.

Take pictures, write notes and maybe record some conversation. After that comes the processing time -- writing down and filing your observations and organizing pictures. Finally figure out what words you learned from participating in the event.

OK, what did I learn? The scariest lesson was what happens if your fingers get in the way of the huge log they use to pound the rice. Then I learned the ladies laugh uproariously when I try to help them. In the midst of all that hilarity, I did manage to lift the log a few times and bruise a few grains of rice. My pictures and written observations helped me to know that pounding rice wasn’t my forte. But I did learn some new phrases and a little more about Malinke culture (i.e. they find weak foreign ladies very funny -- and they are delighted with every word I learn).

The problem is that so much can happen in a single event. There are the objects -- pot, rice, stirring stick. And then the modifiers -- wet, dry, hot, cold -- the actions, participants, taboos, and spiritual elements. And in many events, there are underlying, hidden meanings -- reasons why they do it the way they do. It is necessary to narrow your focus to what you can handle.

Wow, there are dozens of words for rice and ways to cook it and ways to eat it and of course a rice ball can be a very effective way to appease an ancestor spirit. My next brilliant cultural deduction was that there’s a lot more to rice than I ever thought.

At the beginning you will just learn about the objects. Then find out the names for the objects and memorize them and practice, practice, practice. Everywhere you go, say that word. Try it out and see how many people laugh or if someone actually understands you.

Before I tried to learn about rice, I began by pointing at objects and asking, "What’s that?" For a day or so everyone answered, "I bulu.""That’s strange," I thought," how come everything is a bulu?" Turns out, bulu is the word for finger. Obviously my language learning techniques needed modification.

Down the road it is necessary to deal with actions connected with the event, such as stirring the rice or gathering and pounding it. Later you can ask questions about the spirit of the rice and the more intense level of culture and language -- those deep hidden things. But it starts with the simple word and learning about the objects and moving on to another event, like harvesting corn or a child playing with a can.

Each language is defined by the culture of the people who speak it. The Pwo Karen language doesn’t have many words for wheat or flour or apples or strawberries, but there are many different words for rice. There are not many words for car ports or garages but there are 82 kinds of bamboo.

Understanding both culture and language are necessary to make sure that tribal people clearly understand God’s Word and can apply it to their hearts.

As I learned more about the culture and language of my Malinke friends, my relationships began to grow deeper and they firmly nestled into my heart and life.