Ngurrju mayi?

(Apologies for misspelling and grammatical errors)

Nalija ngaliki (tea for us two- you and me)

Nalija nyumpalaku (tea for you two- you and him/her)

Nalija ngajarraku (tea for us but not you- me and him/her but not you I’m speaking to- tough titties)

Tea for two- Doris Day…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdidF8llPHo

Just as the saying goes “You are what you eat” so too you are what you speak. Identity, Weltanschauung (worldview), how you think, how you feel, how you relate to others and others to you, are all intrinsically linked to the language you use.

Frank Zappa: ‘You are what you is (you is what you am)’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ukN2jovdpk

Take for instance gender in language. Why in Spanish el bicho (the insect) is masculine and la mariposa (the butterfly) is feminine is a bit of a mystery to English speakers, and to Spanish speakers too, but the latter are far less likely to question this- they simply know! It colours the way we think about objects. In Spanish el puente (a masculine bridge) results in a very different mental picture to the German die Brucke (apologies-yet to learn how to do umlauts on this computer) (a feminine bridge).

Take for another instance numbers- In Spanish cuarenta y tres (43), in English forty three in Dutch drie en veertig in German drei und vierzig.

The Dutch and Germans are a fraction of a second slower in perceiving the scale of the number. As for the French quatre-vingts (4 twenties or eighty) I won’t go there.

English and many other languages have six personal pronouns. First, second and third person both singular and plural, makes six.

Warlpiri has additional personal pronouns – dual, exclusive and inclusive.

Why has this developed? I think it is due to in Warlpiri society there is a greater emphasis on personal relationships than in European society. The language hence has to be more versatile and specific when it comes to these relationships.

Thus three different ways of saying tea for two.

Bye for now,

Frank

PS- an antidote to the Doris Day song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazzTFxXGeE

Rory Gallagher- Shin Kicker