Learning a language solo or through instruction

I have started keeping a daily journal in Choctaw, which really stretches my understanding of the language. The only dictionary was published in the 1800’s, and some of those words are not used by the Oklahoma Choctaw in present time. Most of the published materials are from the 1800’s in a language that most present day Choctaws cannot understand. My instructor goes over what I write and corrects the vocabulary and sentence structure. It feels like my understanding is beginning to take off. Part of the outcome of working with my instructor is that I now understand what the texts are trying to tell me. Most of the material written for the teaching of Choctaw was developed without linguistic input, and that has hindered the clarity of the descriptions of the language. Leroy, my instructor, and I are working on clearing up some of those descriptions. We have started with the sound system to see if we can give people clearer information.

In addition to writing, I try to read aloud some Choctaw daily. This helps to build my vocabulary. I also listen to recorded Choctaw to help me with comprehension. Comprehension precedes speaking. The result is that I feel more comfortable with Choctaw now.

Another language I have been learning is Scottish Gaelic from an online BBC program. I don’t really have too much time to devote to it, but then I don’t have to be in a big hurry either. I have been on Unit 3 for several weeks now. I have listened to all the little conversations while looking at the text. I have copied the texts. Now, I am just listening to the transcripts to be sure that I can understand what they are saying. I almost have the whole thing. Just to test myself, I want back to what I had copied, and I was able to read it aloud and understand what I was reading. Also, I know some of the phrases—meaning that I can say them. One of the most interesting things about Scottish Gaelic is the prosody of the spoken language, so I have been working on duplicating that as well. I want to thank Alasdair for letting me read his paper because that gave me a little insight into some of the grammar.

While these efforts may not make me a fluent speaker, they are providing me with some basic language that would help me with learning more in an immersion setting. I recall that even with the little bit of in-class instruction in Navajo last fall, I was able to get the gist of a conversation among a Navajo family who had come for the feast day at Jemez. I find the results encouraging for people who  may be studying a language on their own.

Still Waters Revisited

In my further discussions with my Choctaw instructor regarding the line in Psalms 23 about “still waters,” he reads that line as “the edge of the water”—oka ontulaka, with ontulaka meaning “the edge of something.” He also stated that he thought that Byington tried to translate directly from the Hebrew to Choctaw. There is a source (Holisso Anumpa Tosholi: English and Choctaw Definer) that shows how Byington did his translations with some samples. However, the samples show English to Choctaw, not Hebrew to Choctaw.

I did look at various translations of the Hebrew Psalms 23 (http://www.hebrewoldtestament.com/B19C023.htm), but I cannot find that particular wording anywhere. That line is variously translated as “still waters” (KJV, American Standard Version, Darby’s English Translation, Noah Webster Bible, and World English Bivle). It is translated as “quiet waters” in two versions (Bible in Basic English and Young’s Literal Translation) and as water of refreshment in Douay Rheims Bible, which translates that entire line this way: “He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment.”

My translation of the Choctaw makes the ka on the end of ontulaka as a grammatical particle indicating the location and the ontula as a participle meaning “stranded” (according to Byington dictionary). However, if my Choctaw instructor is correct, Byington’s translation significantly differs in meaning from the original, shifting the meaning from the imagery of the condition of the water to the location of where the person is being lead.

My Choctaw instructor reads that line to mean to “rest on the edge of water,” but that is problematic too as he and I discussed early 19^th century Choctaw notions of water, which included stories of water monsters, not to mention mosquitoes, snakes, and other unpleasant creatures that often live by water in the Southeastern part of the U.S.  It occurs to me that this line might have been more meaningful to a Choctaw of the early 1800’s if the line had been simply rendered as  “he leads me to water.”