Word for the Travel Wise (06/28/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

The last time I hit you with a phrase from the Inukitut lang it was more than a mouth full and enough to scare any potential student away from ever attempting to spew out any sound related to this particular tongue. I myself tried shaking the crazy combination of vowels and consonants out from my mind, but only the brave and bold continue to go where many men choose not to and that place is one of communication beyond our own borders.

Today’s word is an Inuktitut word used in Canada:

malikkit – follow them

Inuktitut words as noted from this Nunavut.com site are more “like Lego blocks, intricate pieces locked together to produce a nugget of meaning.” Wiki breaks things down further with in depth info on territories where the language is heard in Canada, differences between Inukitut and the Inuit heard in Greendland and Alaska and includes pictures of the alphabet. Learning this one on the web will be tough, but for those who wish to tackle such linguistic feats check out the links above and some of these last few: Nunavut Living Dictionary, Inkutitut Syllabarium, the Inukitut Morphology List which holds the key to one of the best online dictionaries for getting started.

Past Inukitut words: quviasuktunga tamaaniinnama

Word for the Travel Wise (06/27/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

With half the land mass of Kiribati, tourists to the area are bound to visit the largest coral atoll in the world, Kiritimati (Christmas) Island during their Pacific island escape. Think 100 lakes or ponds sprinkled throughout the four village interior of the atoll. If I had the opportunity to go to Kiribati I’d make it a point to see the land by foot, the water by boat and the bigger picture by helicopter or airplane. I’d imagine one could capture some stellar aerial shots from above, an additional travel past time I’m slowly picking up in my own travels.

Today’s word is a Gilbertese word used in Kiribati:

te wanikiba – airplane (the canoe that flies)

English and Gilbertese (Kiribatese) are the two official langs of Kiribati where Gilbertese has only 102,000 speakers worldwide. A small percentage of the inhabitants of Tuvalu, Fiji, and Marshall Islands may also speak Gilbertese, but majority of speakers reside in Kiribati. According to Wikipedia It is a language from the Austronesian family, part of the Oceanian branch and of the Nuclear Micronesian subbranch. You’ll find a few basic words included in the Wiki as well, but go to this Peace Corps Language Handbook series to get sample dialogue and vocabulary lists. Lonely Planet has a South Pacific phrasebook that looks as if it doesn’t cover the Gilbertese tongue, but if you’re doing some island hopping you may wish to purchase it anyway.

Word for the Travel Wise (06/25/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

So what if we’re limited to learning only ten colors in the Tshiluba language – knowing ten colors in any foreign language is better than knowing nothing at all. Last time I took the English to Tshiluba quiz at the Internet TESL Journal I provided you with the word for orange. After taking the quiz yet another time I leave you with this one…

Today’s word is a Tshiluba word used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

kalabi – yellow

Tshiluba is a Narrow Bantu also known as Luba-Kasai and Luba-Lulua. It is an official lang of the DRC in addition to French. Approximately 6,300,000 people speak the lingo and additional web resources are scarce. Feel free to leave a comment with any extra resources that could help others learn a bit more than what I’ve noted. You can continue learning the words for your own favorite colors by taking this English-Tshiluba quiz online. Chances are you’ll get all of them wrong, unless you’re an extremely talented guesser. After enough trial and error you’ll eventually be able to ramble off all the colors of the rainbow and have no one to tell them to, except in the Congo.

Past Tshiluba words: manimani

Word for the Travel Wise (06/24/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

One of my biggest travel fantasies of all time is to go some place like India or Sri Lanka and work in a media environment. Of course Bollywood has been on the very top of that list, but i-to-i offers some pretty mouth-watering volunteer programs for parties interested in working at the local newspaper in Colombo or with the Bangalore Magazine in India. Erik touched on this earlier. If media ventures are your sort of thing while traveling abroad I suggest you give it a glance. One of these days I’m going to actually buckle down and save to hang out in the Sri Lanka, but for now it’ll just stay at the top of my list.

Today’s word is a Sinhala word used in Sri Lanka:

ga ma – village

English is spoken by ten percent of the population and Sinhala is the official and national language of the country. I’ve actually never tried to learn this one much, but judging from the alphabet it looks like a challenge. Omniglot has a great starter page on learning all the characters and use of this English to Sinhala dictionary could slowly help in distinguishing common travel words. Let’s Speak Sinhala offers lessons at a very small and reasonable fee. They appear to be one of the better Sinhala language learning websites.

Past Sinhala words: hari shook, a da

Word for the Travel Wise (06/21/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Tonight’s word is another easy and functional one to use in both Thailand or your favorite Thai restaurant around the block. So practice, practice, practice…

Today’s word is a Thai word used in Thailand:

sawatdee khrab – hello said by male, becomes sawatdee kaa if said by female

Learning Thai dot com is a great starting point for some basic Thai words and referrals to additional resources. For a brief history of the language, Thai alphabet, and pronunciation guide go to Omniglot. (A pretty clean and simple site with good details.) Another good source would be the Pimsleur language audio CD’s. I used these to prepare for my trip and they worked great! Before making the purchase look into your local library. There are several libraries carrying these audio CD’s and many more.

Past Thai words: hàat sai, wan sao