The sounds of 'qo' and 'ko' in Sümi are as different as how you say
'meowwwr' and 'have you eaten rice?' Sounds of 'qo', 'qho' and 'qhe' must be
uvular or pharyngeal sounds, somewhat like some sounds in Arabic. Amos Teo
will be the best person to explain how these sounds and works and more. :)
Anyway, i
noticed a strange phenomenon these days among Sümi friends.
First, there is this group of young Sümi who really cannot pronounce these words, in short
they are still learning the language: they cannot speak their own mother tongue
neither are they experts in any other language, for example: instead of 'iqho,
iqhi' it's 'ikho, iki' for them and this sometimes even changes the meaning of
the words. I hope they will learn the right pronunciations and how to
speak our language better.
The second group scares the hell out of
me: those who pretend as though they cannot pronounce these sounds. The irony is
that they know and can easily vocalize these sounds but it has become a
fashionable thing to not know how to pronounce these ' urrgh rrghh, xhe,
aqhochimo, axone, akhekuza, qhaqhi etc' sounds. If you are heard pronouncing
these sounds you are apparently an uncivilized idiot from a poor,
dirty underdeveloped Asian village with a crude, local tongue who doesn't have
the slightest idea what's the latest fashion statement. Absolutely
mental!
What level of fluency do they possess in
other languages? Expert level Nagamese? If you can't even speak the only
language you've been speaking at home for 20 to 30 years, what are your chances
of mastering another language?
I met a friend after many years and was
surprised and shocked to hear her speaking 'ko', 'khe', 'ako', 'akhochimo',
'akichiki' when all those years we used to speak very fluent Sümi and its 'strange' sounds. I realised that it was not a case of that rare medical
condition called the Foreign Accent Syndrome which happens after a severe brain
injury when the patient ends up speaking her native language with mispronounced
words and syllables like a totally foreign accent.
It was all for the sake of style. Wow!
It was all for the sake of style. Wow!
I simply cannot understand why it's
fashionable to act duplicate?
Not many languages have the
sounds we have in Sümi tsa and it's actually great to know these difficult sounds. There are many who pay thousands to learn and speak different
sounds and languages of the world while we think it's cool to act literally dumb!!
(Is there some scientific reasoning behind
this type of acting and strange behaviour among groups of people? What does research say? What say Amos? You’re the linguist.)
