school grammars with everyday vocabulary: suggestion for a culture specific approach, with sidaamu afoo as an example

This contribution deals with the problematic area of specialised nomenclature in school material for languages that are comparatively new as languages of instruction. It concerns grammar, although in principle the same problems arise for those who write school materials for mathematics, chemistry, physics or any other subject taught in school. The nature of this contribution, however, is not the description of a research project in the normal sense, so it is not built up around a well formulated research question. Nonetheless, a working hypothesis can be seen to underlie the discussion. It is a reasonable assumption that if a grammatical terminology is created hastily and with quick ad hoc solutions based on English or a dominant language, it may impede transparency and learning in both the short and longer term. Consequently the hypothesis is that one finds the best solutions by starting from the local culture and everyday words, discussing and evaluating their merits as grammatical terms, and only resorting to loans or foreign influence if that approach fails. The suggestions that form this hypothesis are found in (1). [1] introduction Languages are spoken for a long time before they are written, read, and analysed. Since these three abilities are advanced cultural developments, and secondary to the basic culture of life sustenance, it is no surprise that all languages lack the vocabulary to talk about language. This picture changes when a language begins to be used as a medium of instruction, or when writers start to write about language itself. Starting from only around 2500 years ago, we have the first descriptions of phenomena in language, and we have them from Indian, Greek and other philosophers. We have inherited their thinking and linguistic vocabulary from such works as Panini’s Sanskrit grammar and Plato’s Cratylus. The first linguistic terms are metaphors, extensions of meaning from

[320] YRI OSLa volume 8 (1), 2016 some everyday domain to the domain of speech and writing.The verb Γράφειν, "to scratch" in Greek, was extended to the activity of writing; legere "to pick up" in Latin was extended to the idea of reading.Grammarians of Latin and Greek between them developed a vocabulary, which to a great extent became commonly used as loanwords in European languages.Verb, noun, adjective, inflection, and conjugations, to mention but a few, are pure Latin words.Phrase, syntax, and morph are likewise Greek words.They were everyday terms for everyday concepts before they became specialised grammatical terms and spread around the world as loanwords.Hovdhaugen (1982) gives a fascinating insight into the long process that resulted in the now generally accepted grammatical terminology in "Western linguistics".
The dominating linguistic metalanguage now being English, the Latin and Greek loanwords find their way through English into school grammars of languages around the world, again often as loanwords, but also as translation loans.[2] problem area In this study I investigate some aspects of the efforts in Sidaama to create linguistic terminology, and report on a project which is contributing towards that effort.Sidaama is a Highland East Cushitic language spoken in south central Ethiopia by people calling themselves Sidaama and numbering around 2.9 million according to the 2007 Ethiopian population census (Central Statistical Authority 2010:200).It is the 5 th largest language in Ethiopia after Oromiffa, Amharic, Tigrinya, and Somali.The self-described name of the language is Sidaamu Afoo (lit.Sidaama-of mouth), literally "language of the Sidaama".
Even though the history of written Sidaama is short, there are nonetheless some established terminology metaphors and loans which have become settled.Among them are Ɂafó 1 "mouth" for language (metaphor), k'aale for "word" (loan from Amharic k'al "word"), and suɁma "name" for noun (metaphor).There is no way of doing away with the terms for either writing or reading; the former is a metaphor in the spirit of Greek, viz.borreessa "to engrave", while the latter is a phonologically adapted loan from Amharic, viz.nabbaba "to read", adapted from Amharic anäbbäbä.
When it comes to the more sophisticated terms, my view is that the formation of the vocabulary should not be undertaken prematurely, because the [1] In this article, Sidaama examples are given in phonemic notation following IPA, except that a digraph indicates a long vowel or consonant, according to the Sidaama tradition for indicating length.The phonemic rendering of Sidaama applied here is sometimes different from the one used by other investigators, as it is based on my longstanding phonological analysis, published in Yri (1990Yri ( , 2004) ) and in numerous later publications.

SCHOOL GRAMMAR TERMINOLOGY
[321] OSLa volume 8( 1), 2016 analysis of the language needs to have reached a well advanced stage.And on the basis of the Sidaama situation, which I know fairly well, I propose that it is also preferable to delay the process of terminology creation in other less analysed languages, while awaiting good descriptions of the language.However, I see no problem in undertaking the creative process of terminology coinage for those areas of the languages which are well analysed and where researchers have no great disagreement.
[3] principles f or the creation of grammatical terms In the following I set out to propose four principles for successful grammatical terminology.To a great extent, they are explicit statements of what appears to have been the actual principles from the beginning, but I do not want to imply that the Latin and Greek tradition is perfect in this respect.On the contrary, I advocate the need for a certain liberation from that tradition, if not from its principles, at least with regard to the conceptual background of the actual terms which are chosen or coined.For example, in searching for good terms for inflection or conjugation, there is no need for, or universal rationale behind, resorting to the concepts of "bending" which is the everyday concept behind inflection, or "tying together by means of a yoke", which is the agricultural concept behind conjugation.
Suggested principles for the coinage of grammatical terms (i) The term should be a metaphor based on the local culture, rather than a loan.
(ii) It should be defendable from a linguistic point of view, i.e. based on analysis.
(iii) It should be to some extent intuitively self-explanatory.
(iv) It should be simple to remember.
[4] discussion of some existing examples Indriyas (1993 E.C.) is an attempt at a generative syntactic analysis of a sample sentence in Sidaama.It makes reference to a work which is called "Sidaamu Afii Jirte" (The Laws of the Sidaama Language), prepared in 1991 (E.C.).In the title, "the laws of the language" is apparently intended to be the translational equivalent of "grammar".As indicated above, mouth in Sidaama also is a metaphor for language.This term for grammar conforms to the points in 1, 3, and 4 in the principles being proposed.To evaluate its merits under point 2, the crucial word is jirte, "law, regulation, rule, norm, custom" (the equivalents as given in three dictionaries: Yri (1982), Gasparini (1983), andShimelis (2007).Is grammar a set of such phenomena, or is there a better Sidaama term to describe the regularities and patterns of the language?Such are the considerations that would necessarily be undertaken, and no opinion with the respect to this is indicated here.
The above-mentioned contribution of Indriyas (1993 E.C.) is printed in Woganke "Our Culture", a magazine published annually by the Office for Culture and Tourism at Zone level in Hawassa on the occasion of the annual Sidaama Language and Culture Symposium.It is important because it is the only available sophisticated explanation of the syntax of Sidaama, which is written in the language itself.Shimelis (1998) contains fragments of phonological explanation, especially with reference to the writing system.And in the readers of elementary schools, one can find scattered grammatical terminology.Otherwise, the more complete grammars of Sidaama are written in English (Maccani 1990, Anbessa 2000(PhD thesis) and 2014, Yri 2006, Kawachi 2007) and consequently do not suggest grammatical terminology in Sidaama.
Giving more examples of recently coined terms, I present the solution currently in effect for consonants and vowels.They are both based on the verb for talking, c'o-iɗ-a "to speak" (morpheme breaks shown by a hyphen)."Vowel" is expressed with the causative active of this root, "cause to speak, address", nominalised as an instrument or a nomen agentis, viz.c'oi-ʃiiʃ-aan-co "something which causes/helps one to speak/pronounce".Both Gasparini (1982) and Shimelis (2007) list "read" among the meanings of this causative verb, witnessing that the concept of "talking" is, or at one time was, the basis for the metaphorical extension "reading"."Consonant" is expressed as c'oi-ʃiiʃ-am-aan-co, the only difference being that the latter form contains the passive morphemeam, hence "something which is caused to be spoken/read, something pronounced".The translations are my attempts to convey the literal meanings of the words.
Obviously the terms are new coinages that purport to explain linguistic facts about the differences between vowels and consonants in Sidaama.However, in my opinion, they are not based on linguistic analysis; that is, if my understanding of the verb used is somewhat near the correct one.I cannot see what phonetic knowledge they describe, in particular how the difference between vowels and consonants is adequately captured in the difference between causative active on one hand and causative passive on the other.Besides, being so similar to each other, they cannot be easy to keep apart in memory, either for pupils in schools, or for adults.They are obviously coined in the same mould as the Amharic annababi ("vowel") and tänababi ("consonant") that at first glance also exploit the concept of reading (not talking) in the active and passive voices as the home domain of the two classes of sounds.The Amharic choice of terms, however, is inherited from Gə'əz and is related to the "fidel" system of writing, where a symbol represents a syllable.Further, the basic stem nababa in Gə'əz has "utter a sound, give voice to" among its sense descriptors, which explains the causative/adjutative active derivation of the term for vowel: "something which helps to give voice to (viz. to the consonant in the fidel grapheme)", while the consonant is "that which is (only) pronounced (by means of the vowel in the fidel grapheme)".That explains the passive voice in the term for consonant.As of 1992, Sidaama did not employ the fidel system, so the choice of terms can at best be defended by reference to the time when fidels were used for writing Sidaama, and even so by reference to the history of Amharic and Gə'əz.(The factual information towards the end of this paragraph is provided by Prof. Baye Yimam and Lutz Edzard in personal communication.It is reformulated by me, so that any resulting misrepresentation of facts is solely my responsibility.) A superficial knowledge of the phonology of a language on the part of the decision makers is not only unfortunate for the phonological terminology, but also for the creation of the orthography.Graphemes of a language can be seen as grammatical terms in a wider sense, and should be subject to the same caution as other terms.In Shimelis (1998:xxii) some glottal stops are called lik'insu k'oonk'o "throat sounds", which is probably an adequate term.But the glottal stop is not listed among the consonants, and in some occurrences the symbol is not described as standing for a "throat sound", but as a device "separating identical vowels from each other".The present Sidaama orthography bears witness to the disadvantage of prematurely presenting linguistic results in the form of a new writing norm.For example, the glottal stop is sometimes written <'> (in clusters with liquids, and also as geminated between vowels of any quality), sometimes <''> (ungeminated between identical vowels), and sometimes omitted altogether (word initially and ungeminated between vowels of different quality).For a systematic evaluation of the Sidaama orthography see Yri (2004).
[5] one poss ible theoretical orie ntation -construction grammar (cg) Rather than using Latin and Greek through the mediation of English or another dominant language as a mould or straightjacket, translating grammatical terms [324] YRI OSLa volume 8( 1), 2016 from them, I suggest another way.It may result in a temporary solution, or in a lasting solution, but its main idea is not to hurry.My suggestion is to take seriously the principles outlined above in (1), without committing oneself to choices to be adhered to forever.Let me first outline one possible theoretical foundation for such a suggestion, using the treatment of lexical categories, or parts of speech, in the so called construction grammar framework as an example.
It must be emphasised that the suggestion in ( 1) does not depend on those principles or any other particular theory of grammar.And although CG is an attractive framework because of its flexibility, only a fragment of the theory is presented here, viz. the skeleton of how to think about lexical categories.It is attractive because it treats each language on its own merits, claiming that the categories are not universal, but language specific.figure 1: Conceptual space for the parts of speech (Croft 2001:92).In Croft's framework, this is a table that summarises the purposes for which the languages of the world use words and phrases.The upper case labels along the left hand margin are not terms for lexical categories like noun and adjective, to avoid thinking of any language in particular, but more abstract labels referring to uncontroversial semantic groupings.Figure 1 shows a semantic map of the concepts involved in the description of the functions or the meanings of constructions in any language.
Reference, modification and predication (along the top line) are some of the pragmatic functions of language, defining propositional acts.Objects, properties, and actions (along the left margin) represent major semantic classes.At the crossing points of the horizontal and the vertical lines we get an abstract characterisation of what in specific languages are different kinds of words or phrases, the prototypical categories of nouns, adjectives, and verbs (indicated by boldface letters in the chart).Along the top horizontal line, there might have been more propositional acts, like classification and quantification, and along the left margin there might have been more semantic classes, not just the three central ones.
In the following, capitalised labels are language specific (Noun), while lower case labels are universal prototypes, defined from their position in the semantic map (noun).
In traditional (school) grammars of a particular language, words belonging at these boldfaced crossing points are labelled Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Prepositions etc., following the Latin tradition, rather than receiving indigenous names that allude to their function.Once a label is coined, a category is established for the words that belong under this label, for example Nouns, and the words are listed as belonging to that category.That is exactly what I want to avoid before the language is thoroughly analysed, and I will show how it can be done in such a way that it helps both the child learners and those who undertake the standardisation efforts which are bound to follow at some point.
In a learner's elementary school grammar, these pragmatic functions and semantic classes may well be expressed by means of everyday language, without technical terms which will sometimes be difficult to penetrate.The appendix is an excerpt from a grammar project in progress, still in its initial stage, but following the principles outlined in (1).Applying the constructionist approach that categories are flexible, I do not commit myself or the student to a rigid categorisation.Rather, the function of words and phrases are explained in everyday words.
[6] the layout of the grammar and the lessons It is imagined that my suggestion might work e.g. for the fifth grade in an elementary school.
First, there is a lengthy explanation of letters and sounds (not included in the appendix), focusing on the difference between them, and using the metaphor that letters are mirror images of sounds.The latter can only be spoken and heard, the former can be written, seen, and read.Normally, 5 th grade pupils are able to read and write fluently, so the grammar only helps them to get a deeper understanding, and to become conscious of some of the peculiarities of the orthography.The orthography, being inconsistent and self-contradictory from a phonological point of view, is bound to be difficult to learn, and thus presents pedagogical challenges.
The larger part of the grammar, at its present stage, deals with the Sidaama equivalents of Sentences, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Copula, Demonstratives, and Tense/Aspect.Every lesson introduces one concept, or at most a very few related concepts.Then the body of the lesson is made up of a few short statements explaining this concept.Then follows a text for the pupils to [326] YRI OSLa volume 8( 1), 2016 read carefully and search for instances of that concept in the text. 2 The excerpt of the grammar that is presented here contains only enough to give an idea of its structure.
The grammar in the appendix contains the part that deals with sentences and, extremely abbreviated, the part that deals with word function, illustrated with some functions of a noun, that in Sidaama easily overlap with those of an adjective.To put it in CG terms, "the same word may refer or modify according to the construction in which it occurs".The accompanying English translation is for the benefit of the non Sidaama reader.A sentence is defined as a message, which sometimes consists only of one word, sometimes of more words.The word I use for message is sokka, that may mean "something sent, message, letter".The commonly used word for sentence, e.g. in Indriyas (1993) and all the Sidaama readers of the elementary schools, is c'oi fooliʃʃo, a translation loan from the Amharic aräftä nägär, "the pause/break/rest of a matter/something spoken".I use both of these terms, although the translation loan is not a very intuitive choice.As for the term "word", I assume that the loanword k'aale is so entrenched that there is neither the need nor any easy means to replace it with an indigenous everyday word.
After the two topics that are treated in the excerpt, I go on to the more complex fields of the chart given in figure (1), viz.nouns functioning as predication (e.g.'my brother is a patient'), as modifier (e.g.'a widow woman'), and a great many others.Those are not included in this presentation.
It is not necessary at this point to draw any conclusion about the most recommended choices of specific grammatical terms.But from the treatment of topic 2, "The word", it would appear reasonable that su'ma "name" is a viable choice for a Sidaama grammatical concept noun, which is in fact the solution actually in effect in school material.It happens to be in line with the "Western" tradition.
The grammar goes on with examples and explanations that are attempts to overcome the Sidaama problem of classification of nouns (read: "referring expressions" and adjectives (read: "modifying expressions").No such term as "adjective" is introduced, but by means of examples it is demonstrated that e.g. the [2] The reading texts in the grammar are taken from Kachara (2002 and2003), used with permission from the leader of the literacy project of the Mekane Yesus Church that published the books, Mr. Peter Lanting.They are authored by Kachara Bansa and contain stories from the rural culture of Sidaama.The grammatical explanations both in Sidaama and English are written by the author of this article, who also translated the Sidaama texts into English.(Yaicob Wayu helped with the translation of deesallo in Text 1.) The translation of the texts is a general one, not necessarily in perfect English, but sufficient to convey the semantic contents of the sentences.Morphological glossing is not provided because the aim of the paper is not linguistic analysis.
word gunnitte "widow" in some contexts "points to a thing (which includes persons and animals)", and that is its work in that context.Semantically we would have said that the word refers.With Latin as metalanguage we would have called it a Nomen, a Noun.But in other contexts, e.g.gunnitte manco, "widow woman" the same word "tells how a person/thing is", and that is its function in that context.Semantically, we would have said that it modifies, and in a rigid metalanguage we might have called it an Adjective.So the question arises: is it an Adjective or is it a Noun, or is it both?This problem is not trivial in Sidaama (see Yri (2007)).By taking this approach, pupils are made more aware of the functions of words in certain constructions, rather than being forced to learn categories of words that are not even adequate labels, and which may have to be revised when the language is better analysed.While the intuitively attractive option of choosing su'ma "name" as the term for Noun probably will remain the lasting solution, one will have to struggle more with the category containing modifiers, which in Sidaama overlaps with Nouns.Focusing on the two pragmatic functions of referring and modifying might be easier to deal with, both theoretically and pedagogically.By the way, one suggestion for Adjective in Sidaama actually in use is su'mi ledo: "the companion of a Noun".One of its disadvantages is that it alludes to a purely formal, not functional characteristic of its meaning.One may object that a lot of different grammatical phenomena can appear "accompanying a name/Noun", without saying anything about "how the thing is".
In the drafted grammar, predication is described as "adding new knowledge".It is not included in the excerpt that is the appendix to this article.Words which "add new knowledge", are however, are not simply the Verbs of Sidaama, albeit including them.Predicates may also be all kinds of nominal and sentential constructions, with a Copula as the wizardly function determiner.
[7] conclusion This is just a small introduction to a work in progress, along with the considerations that triggered it.The approach does not reduce the importance of the creation of a well-reflected set of grammatical terms.But those who create it should be native speakers (so that concerning Sidaama, the present author is disqualified from the outset, but hopefully entitled to have an opinion), and have enough linguistic insight not to form misleading terms, which may be the case if the task is undertaken too early in the standardisation process.A grammar composed along the lines suggested here may even help those who set about coining the conclusive metalanguage.
[328] YRI OSLa volume 8( 1), 2016 It is claimed here that the propositional acts of reference, modification, and predication, as well as the semantic classes of objects, properties and actions, can be made simple without technical terms.It is also assumed that the approach is feasible and would be profitable for any topic of grammar.The present suggested grammar does not distinguish between morphology and syntax.They are interwoven within each other.That, however, is a matter of organisation and not crucial to the main objective of this contribution: to create an awareness of the power of everyday words to describe grammatical phenomena in an intuitive and simple way.
acknowledgeme ntsProfessor Baye Yimam and Professor Lutz Edzard provided details about the background of terms for vowels and consonants in Amharic and Gï'ïz.I should also like to thank the NORHED project 'Linguistic Capacity Building -Tools for the Inclusive Development of Ethiopia' financially supported by NORAD.ref erences Anbessa Teferra.2000.A Grammar of Sidaama (unpublished PhD thesis).Revised and published as Anbessa (2014).