Square One

I know square one like the back of my hand. I’ve got it mapped out inch by inch. For the past three weeks, every time I sit down at a makeshift wooden table surrounded by chickens and children for my Kaqchikel language class I’ve found myself right back at square one.  This is my very first experience learning a completely new language, one that I’ve never seen or even heard of before moving to Guatemala. The sounds of Kaqchikel are nothing like those of the Latin languages I currently speak. Nearly every word is punctuated by guttural clicks I’m convinced I simply lack the anatomy to create. Words that are meanings apart are distinguished by the infinitesimal differences between the pronunciation of k’s and q’s. Letters make entirely different sounds based on whether they’re found in the beginning, middle, or end of the word. It’s all incredibly confusing and I leave each class completely exhausted and angry at stupid square one. I’m not only mentally drained after class; I’m physically pooped too. My throat tends to hurt after three hours of trying to force myself to make the back of the throat clicks or pronounce the harsh vowels all too common in Kaqchikel. And my brain turns to literal mush after hours of trying to understand what my teacher means when she says that if I hold my hands in front of my mouth and feel the air escape as I say the word q’aq’ it means fire, if no air escapes it means wolf.

My classroom

 

When you’re learning a brand new language you lack the ear for the tiny differences between words like ch’oy, which means rat, and choy, which means lake.  When you’ve never even heard that language before or anything like it, you lack the ear for the apparently larger differences between words like ka’i’ (two) and kaji’ (four). As I sit dumbfounded in my seat futilely trying to grasp these nuances, my mind can’t help but to drift to the thought of language and how incredible it is. Thousands of miles and worlds apart, two complete strangers both looked at the same exact thing and christened it with entirely distinctive sets of vowels and constants strung together. How is it that humans around the world have so many inherent similarities, but managed to come up with nearly 7,000 completely distinct languages? Whether you grew up in Manhattan or in a small village in the Amazon, you probably say “oww” when you stub your toe or “eeeek” when you see a disgusting bug, so obviously there is some sort of reservoir of inherent phonetics applicable to nearly everyone around the world, right? And yet there are entire sounds and letters that exist in some languages and not in others. I don’t get it, you guys. Seriously, can someone explain this to me?

Snapping out of my linguistic mental tangent for a moment, I look down at my desk and softly laugh at my note-taking tactics. Scribbled on my pages are little tips like, “the sound a drop of water makes when it lands on a hot pan,” “the sound the men on the street make when they want my attention,” or “wave sound.” Having never heard many of these sounds used in actual words before, getting creative with my notes is a necessity. Many of these helpful hints come from my Kaqchikel teacher, Leticia, who desperately tries to find ways for me to understand her language. This woman is the paragon of patience, the patron saint of repetition.  Every Saturday, she graciously invites me into her home where we use the chickens running around and vegetable garden for interactive learning. Tak’ampe ri che ko’ol räx she’ll say, and after taking a few moments to translate in my head I’ll bring her a small twig plucked from a shrub. Taqaja’ wo’o’ tra’s and I’ll find five peaches from the nearby trees to bring her.

 

Although I have my struggles and occasional bitterness, the truth is that I love learning Kaqchikel. The exciting challenge of learning a new language is made even better by the feeling that I am connecting with my community on a deep level.  Kaqchikel is so beautifully unique in it’s intrinsic reverence to nature. Many of the words I learn have an etymology that stems back to nature somehow, like q’ij, which means both day and sun, or nimamixk’u’ that means apple or literally translates to big, red heart. As I learn and speak this language, I become increasingly more aware of the Mayans’ intimate relationship with the Earth and their belief that we belong to it as much as it belongs to us. It fills me with a sense of history and culture that brings me closer to the people I live amongst everyday. Plus it is wickedly fun to see the mixture of surprise and amusement that springs up on Guatemalans’ faces when they hear an American speaking their ancestors’ tongue.   

Achike ri nub’ey wakami

Who knows where my path will lead