Talk that Talk

Hey hey, reader!  Long time, no talk.  Sorry about that but I've been kinda busy-a good kind of busy.  The stress free kind.  I'm enjoying my summer for the most part.  Reading a lot, listening to great music, and practicing math = super fun time!  Also, I've been dancing, running, yogaing and just keeping my body in constant motion. :D I realize that all my activities in some why or another involve language....yes, even bodies speak through dance and movement!

Here's a poem I wrote a while ago on this very topic= language!

Speechless 

Arabic is the language of my soul
Spanish is the language of my heart
English is the language of my mind
And Twi, Twi is the language of my flesh, my bones, my blood.
How my tongue hungers, thirsts to speak the language of my ancestors.  

On Language
Fun fact:  Globalization has allowed us to connect faster and with greater ease than ever before.  And even though some academics challenge this notion and argue that we were just as connected back way in the day before all our technological advancements, its obvious that keeping in touch and sharing ideas would have been a lot easier during people like Ibn Battuta's time if Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and [insert whatever medium you use to share your thoughts/read the thoughts of others here] existed.  Sucks for Battuta but maybe not cus he got to travel the world in style! ;)- Tengo celos de su vida!

Ibn Battuta...he is the Most Interesting Man

The Frequent Flyer Miles this guy would have had!  

But despite not having access to the same stuff we do (actually reader, you and I are really damn lucky to be living where we live because a good chunk of the world still doesn't have access to the internet), people still communicated.  Sometimes I wonder if they communicated more/had more profound conversations.  We have so much information at the tips of our fingers yet I find myself talking about banal things like the weather far too often than I would like...tangent. K back to what I was saying on language.

Reader, I'm going to give you a run down on my lingual skill development.

1. Twi- take the "ch" sound from chew+ weeeeeee (the sound you make when swinging on a swing set)=Twi!
FYI: In case stupid African stereotypes are popping in your head, no, there are no clicking sounds in Twi...(this is mostly found among the small group of people who speak the Khoisan languages in Southern Africa )

 Even though Ghana's national language is English (adopted the language of its colonizers following independence), there are a crap ton of languages spoken on this itty bitty West African country.   I was born in Kumasi, Ghana and lived in a suburb in the city where my Adansi mommy and my Asante daddy along with my large extended family, neighbors, and friends taught me and my two sisters to speak the Akan dialect of Twi. (Adansi and Asante are two different ethnic groups even though at one point in time the Adansi were part of the Asante.  There kerfuffle a long time ago and the Adansi split off to do their own thing.)
FYI in case your curious how many languages are spoke in Ghana: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/tribes/languages.php
Anyways, before I immigrated to NJ as a 6 year old snot nosed kid, I thought, sang, played and did everything in this language.

  Hey!  Here's a video of a nice Ghanaian lady teaching her adorable Ghanaian/American baby boy named Kofi ="Friday" some basic Twi.

Woah, woah, woah!  Hol up...just discovered this on Youtube.  Globalization is officially here to stay!  :O
Reader, with further adieu, I give you...

                          The Chinese Twi Gospel

I'm really diggin it!  

Twi is a pretty neat language but there are also a bunch of other neat languages in Ghana as well like Ga, Fante, Ewe, Nzema, etc.. I was super annoyed when I went back last summer and all the arrogant Asantes would say things like "You're in Ghana, speak Twi".  My response: "I grew up in the States and unfortunately, I forgot how to speak it but I still understand it all when its spoken to me.  I really want to relearn it though." What I was actually thinking: Ummm xxcus me, I would love to but first of all, the national language is English and second of all, why don't you speak the languages of the other ethnic groups? The arrogance some Asantes have come from the fun historical fact of the Asante conquering, exploiting, and dominating over the other ethnic groups before the British came...speaking of the Brits, conquering, exploitation, and domination.  What was Great Britain's most important legacy besides the Spice Girls?  Clue: the great lingua franca/ lingual hegemon of today! Oh that's right, the language we're communicating in right now!

2.  English

After so many tears from being ostracized, made fun, and laughed at by a bunch of American kids (I got "Go back to Africa" so many times) in elementary school, ESL classes,books, t.v, and music got English stuck in my brain and before I knew it, I was walkin', talkin', and gun slingin' like an Amurikin!  Yuppers, reader I adopted English and tried so hard to assume this new all American identity to the point of rejecting Twi and my Ghanaian identity. My sisters and I, spoke, screamed, fought, and played in English together and with the kids in our apartment complex and whenever our parents would speak to us in Twi, we would reply in our bratty, kiddy voices in the Queen's-bastardized-American-version English.  My dad tells me, that one day, he realized we could no longer speak Twi after asking one of us respond to his question in our native tongue.      

"How do you forget how to speak a language but still understand like 99.9% of it?" you ask
Easy: Like math, dance, sports or whatever, practice is everything!  If you don't practice speaking a language in a very long time, you loose it.  I'm also pretty sure that my  our (my sisters and I) anxiety and frustrations over trying to assimilate into our new culture definitely had something to do with it too.  Also, we were/are the type of kids/young women who just sit around and read stuff all day.  Like stereotypical Africans, we sure do love/are forced to by our parents to learn and do well in school!  So as a kid, my head was stuck in the Dr. Seuss, Junnie B. Jones, Amelia Bedelia, Ramona Quimby, Harry Potter ,a Series of Unfortunate Events and a crap ton of other books.  Also, my parents (fortunately or unfortunately) aren't all that prideful when it comes to things like culture.  Yeah, they like being Ghanaian but if they were something else, they would be fine with that as well. They encouraged us (to a degree: no boys, dating, study, study, study =not what stereotypical American teenage girls are forced to deal with) to embrace America because they are pragmatic immigrants.  So when we girls lost our ability to speak Twi, they were shocked but not disappointed or too bothered by it-I guess?
Now that I'm older and no longer a I'msoobsessedwithwhatpeoplethinkofmeomagodomagodomagodmyparentsaresuchlosers-teenager I really regret not being able to speak Twi.  :-(  Its really awful when you get off a plane and the only thing you can say to your grandmother who you haven't seen in 14 years is "How are you?", she responds and the conversation dies.  I'll relearn it fo sho but right now, I'm really uncomfortable/annoyed by how my American accent makes me butcher this language so a lot of times, I'm hesitant to say stuff.  Speaking of languages my American accent butchers...

Video: The English Language in 24 Accents
This is soooo sooo funny.  My favorite is hands down the Southern accent he does.  ROFL! XD
-Also, the Southern British snob is how I image the guy/bloke/tipo who converted my great-great-great grandpa to Christianity sounded like!

3. Espanol!

Como Inglis, hay muchas personas de identidades étnicas diferentes  alrededor del mundo que hablan esta lengua preciosa.  Una amiga mia me dijo que en su opinion, Espanol es una lengua divertida.  Y si, estoy de acuerdo.  La lengua suena como las olas de un rio y pienso este especialemente cuando hago rodar mi lengua.  Por mas que siete anos, he estudiado mi lengua tercera.  Al principio, la aprende en mi escuela primera donde una maestra me enseno palabras basicas como los colores y otras cosas.  Queria seguir aprendiendola porque a mi me encanta esta lengua y en particular, cuando hispanohablantes la hablan tan suavemente. Ahora, tengo muchos erorres con la gramatica y necesito mas practica pero sin duda, he mejorado muchisima.  Cuando fui a cuba, al principio, no pudi entender nada.  Los cubanos hablan espanol tan rapido y con muchas palabras diferentes que nunca oi antes.  Pero despues de algunas semanas, pudi entender mas y mas.  Me algro que mi primera vez en un pais hispanohablante fue en Cuba.  Con extranjeros y con cubanos, hable y aprende sobre mi mismo y el mundo!  Ahora que ha sido mas que un mes que sali del pais, extrano mi mama cubana, mis amigas y amigos, y a veces incluso los piropos...mmmmm-cambie mi mente-no los extrano!  Pero un dia voy a regresar por supuesto y lector, debes ir tambien!  Cuba es un pais increible!!!! :D 

 Una cosa mas: Aye mi madre...que lastima que no hable espanol aqui en mi barrio.  :'((( 

Video: Si el Miami Heat Fuera Cubano (If the Miami Heat Were Cuban).  I <3 Cuban Spanish.  It has so much personality-just like the people who speak it.

4.  Arabic
My kid sister has coined it Parsletongue but she's an idiot. :P  Arabic is the most beautiful language I've ever heard!  It sounds like the language wood nymphs would speak to each other as they fly under a night sky twinkling with stars.  I did an Arabic immersion program like two years ago (woow!  How quickly time goes by.) and was able to get a good intro into the alphabet and learn some basic but important vocab (as well as hang out with super cool people)...all of which I've mostly forgotten since as I said earlier, with languages and anything, once you stop practicing, you loose it. :( I love the way Arabic speakers pronounce their words with the guttural and breathless-windy sounds.  Its tan gamil! Its also something I have great difficulty doing.  Anyways, Arabic is a language that I want to be able to speak comfortably one day since I've ALWAYS wanted to go to Egypt and I've had an interest in Middle Eastern politics for a very long time.  Also, Middle Eastern food is some of the yummmmisst food on this planet. And you know how I feel about food reader:I don't joke when it comes to food!  So to go Middle Eastern countries, to eat yummy food, and to meet super cool people, I'm gunna learn Arabic! :D

About the video: The song is AWESOME!  But the images sure as hell don't represent Egypt completely.  It mostly shows white looking celebrities and tosses in a couple pyramids and sphinxes. Yup, so not an entire country.

5. Japanese
Actually, before I met Arabic, I had a fling with Japanese.  My middle school/early high school days of anime  and manga got me interested in the Japanese language=super fun/lovely language.  But I'm not that serious about it really anymore.  I mean, if there were a magical pill I could take to speak a whole bunch of languages, this would be one my list for sure following the languages I love in my poem!  But if I actually had this pill, Portuguese, Pashto,  and Farsi are really high up on my list since I NEED to go to Brazil, Afghanistan, and Iran.  All fascinating countries filled with incredible people with long histories and contradictions just like Japan, Cuba, the US, or anywhere else!

Just so you know darling reader, when it comes to languages, no language is better than another.  We speak what we speak because of where we were born, where we were raised, or what strikes our interest.  The world is exciting and I want to take it all in.  To understand people and to ingrain myself in their culture, I really want to learn as many languages as possible!  K, reader, I'm gunna get going now but we'll chat later.

Peace, إعجاب، حب, y besitos!  
-Abenaa* ,Lulu (Arabic nickname), Lorena (what my Cuban mom calls me)
FYI: Although everyone in my family has an English name, my Ghanaian day of the week name is Abenaa or born on a Tuesday just like my mom and my two sisters but no one really calls me this.  My sisters call me Loretta (pronounced with a "d" since they have east coast American English accents) and my parents and cousin mostly call me Lore (the "e" pronounced like the "i" in lips since they have Twi accents)!

From Wiki: Traditional names in Ghana vary by ethnic group. There are many ethnic groups in the West African nation of Ghana. Most of them base the first names they give to their newly born children on the day of the week on which the child has been born.

The Akan people of Ghana frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. These names have spread throughout Ghana and West Africa, from Benin/Dahomey (Fon) and Togo (Ewe) to the Côte d'Ivoire (Baoulé), and throughout the African diaspora. For example, in Jamaica the following day names have been recorded: Monday, Cudjoe; Tuesday, Cubbenah; Wednesday, Quaco; Thursday, Quao; Friday, Cuffee; Saturday, Quamin; Sunday, Quashee. English translations of these names were used in the United States during the nineteenth century; Robinson Crusoe's Man Friday may be conceptually related.

Most Ghanaians have at least one name from this system. Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was so named for being born on a Saturday (Kwame) and being the ninth born (Nkrumah). Also, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, was so named for being born on a Friday (Kofi).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghanaian_name

More Pictures from mi viaje!

Lincoln!: This is a flyer for an Oscar Movie event in the University of Havana :/

Marti Monument in la Plaza de la revolucion

The view from my balcony at my residency.  I miss this view!

My room at the at the hotel/residency on Calle G.

The room I shared with a super cool roomate.  Messy part=all me.

From the roof.  Living on Calle G was the best!  During the nights and wee early mornings, everyone congregates on this street to just hang out, drink, talk, chill.  I loved sitting on the roof and just watching the sea of humanity go by in addition to hanging out there with awesome people! :D 

A monument for those killed during the sinking of the USS Maine. Just one tidbit of Cuba and the US's long, complicated, messy, love-hate relationship.   

Chickadies running around in a Paladar (restaurant).  I felt really awful/contented knowing that the piece of chicken on my plate got to run around under my chair with its mama close by.  Why can't animals killed in the states live like this?Inhumane treatment of animals in industrialized food system =main reason why I'm weening myself off meat again.

The Beautiful Blue Sea el Malecon  surrounds.