5k Kate

I haven’t been writing posts so frequently this trip, but it’s not because I’ve been running less (I’m still running every other day!) or because less is happening. Honestly I think it’s because I set up a chair and a mosquito net on the balcony which allows me to work until 9 or 10 or even later at night. Before I would go to bed around 8 or 9 because it was dark and because of the mosquitoes. And it’s just too uncomfortable to do work in bed. But now I can stay up transcribing and glossing stories until I’m nice and tired. Then I’m too tired to write blog posts when I crawl into bed.  Anyway, I passed a little milestone yesterday. The Ende text corpus now has more than 70,000 words! I wonder if I can get to 100,000 by the end of the year. Now that would be a nice base for a dissertation! Work is still going strong and steady and mostly by myself. The village is mostly away in their gardens or chopping sago. I feel a little guilty for not being more helpful with the gardening work...

I realize that although I am a linguist doing fieldwork, most of my writing is about very non-linguistic things. I guess it’s because I require more processing for these extra-linguistic activities while my work leaves me happy and excited (but I write about my findings in the Ende grammar and dictionary). So let me just tell you what I did today! I woke up at 6:30 and went on a run with about ten girls. Some girls joined late so I paid attention to how the currently running girls invited the others to join and noted this in my notebook later. After the run we had a race across the field and since I came in last, I played a trick and ran back across the field with a big head start. Then I asked the girls what happened and noted those new words in my notebook too. I made them laugh during stretching to thank them for their linguistic help.  I got home, bucket bathed, ate breakfast, and chatted with A. Then I gathered up my gear and headed to Kagär and Erga’s house, whom ...

It’s the middle of January, nearly the new moon, and a good time to reflect on what I’ve accomplished and what I’m dreaming to accomplish.  After the big recording frenzy of the holidays, I’ve been putting most of my attention on organizing and transcribing the corpus. Partly because Limolians have been very busy the past few weeks and also because I want the corpus in archival state by the end of this summer. This has involved a number of tasks: 1. I went back through all the raw data to find recordings that didn’t make it into the database. Many of these were chance recordings of spontaneous speech or intentional recordings done by someone that wasn’t me. This resulted in 500+ unique recordings. 2. Once all the material was in, I tagged each recording for a number of characteristics to generate a file name. The language spoken, the type of speech (spoken, read, or written), whether or not it was spontaneous, prompted (by me), or elicited word for word (by me), and whether it was ...

I’ve been having a hard time writing a blog post since the new year. Mostly because there’s been too much going on and I know I can’t possibly put into words everything that’s happened and how I’m feeling about it.  January 1st-3rd were occupied by a huge fight between two families, which resulted in my favorite family, Manaleato and Kauga, moving from Limol to nearby Malam. The fighting was violent and got the whole community involved. Essentially two young people Ranky and Kolmet consenually or non-consensually ran off to the bush and intend to be married. Kolmet’s father Kauga doesn’t approve of Ranky, hence the fight. I cared for a few wounds including a bitten finger and a blow to the head. I was advised not to record anything because the words people are saying are too bad for the archive. The fights prompted other fights as well and one young woman crossed the village at night with a knife to provoke another young woman. The schoolgirls were then called to a special meeting ...

New year! Sisor pazi! I’m laying in my sanctuary in my room: a sleeping bag on top of a thin air mattress in a miniature mosquito tent in a room about twice my beds size, floored with woven pandanus, walled with woven tree bark and roofed with woven leaves. Sounds of solar powered boom boxes fill the air, punctuated by loud booms, cracks, and cries of “2017 yawo! (bye!) 2018 sebor e! (welcome!)” Our last day of 2017 was spent happily. Three young women joined me on my run this morning! I hope it becomes a regular thing. It was fun to run and walk together, then do some stretches and go to the bathing hole. I wish I had some more tennis shoes or shorts for them to wear too... I just brought one set. I went to church again this morning since people were so happy to see me there last week. It was a packed house and the message was “God wants us to be happy today so be happy and peaceful (and don’t do anything bad)”. I brought my translation work and glossed a part of a text during the ser...