The Black Family Weblog

What an amazing day!! Again, completely wiped from the day but eager to share the highlights:

• An appreciation for the complexity of human languages and duality of patterning: “No matter how eloquent his bark, a dog cannot tell you that his father was poor, but honest.”
• An appreciation for the finer points of grammar, noting that only one word changes between the following two sentences, but a whole lot changes in meaning: 1)”I ate ice cream with my spoon.” 2)”I ate ice cream with my friend.”
• Excitement that grammar analysis is a whole lot like figuring out puzzles. Wow, that sounds pretty geekariffic!
• Phonetic transcription is easier than I remembered.
• I am now learning Yohane sang: jiu-roku for a language learning team presentation later this week. Prize in the form of recognition in the comments to this blog if anyone can figure out what that is by the end of the week. Should be especially challenging as I expect my spelling attempt is probably not even close to the actual correct version in that language.
• Best for last…GUESS WHAT?!?!? Tonight, we had a Phillippine dinner with Joanne Shetler at her house and she shared more of her stories from her time with the Balangao people. What a lovely and precious lady!!! We had an incredible time.

That’s it for me for tonight, more from beautiful downtown Waxhaw tomorrow!