Week 4

Week 4... 23 days...or 2 days into week four. Yeah, my post is a couple days late. But, I was having a great time with some girlfriends at the lake cottage. I will say, although I would love to have Baby J right now, it has been a nice break for me from school and I hope to continue enjoying my "summer of freedom" as I have this past few weeks. There is nothing like staying up with your girlfriends talking about everything and nothing until 4 in the morning...

So, onto the educational portion of my weekly post. Aren't you excited?! Of course one of the most germaine parts of traveling to another country is understanding the language and being able to exchange at least a few words in conversation to the locals. So, today we will learn some Amharic, the most common language spoken in Ethiopia.

Here is the Amharic alphabet:

I think it would be a very difficult language to learn! When I was in my Child Development class, I learned that the sensitive period for language is up to around the age of 5 or 6. Of course, while it is not impossible to learn language after that time, our brains our most receptive and absorbant to that information during the early years, which is probably why I cannot remember any of the Spanish I "learned" from high school. (On a side note, there are many different types of sensitive periods for learning various information as children grow, and one of those is being able to attach to a parent. Because of the various situations from which many adoptive children come, it can be difficult for them to re-learn the attachment patterns they have learned from their biological parents or whoever took care of them until placement...I think I just decided what next week's post will be about!) But, I digress...back to language!

እናት ~ mother (spoken: ənat )
አባት ~ father (abat)
ሴት አያት ~ grandmother (set ayat)
አያት ~ grandfather (ayat)
አክስት ~ aunt (akst)
አጎት ~ uncle (agot)
እወድሃለው ~ I love you (əwädhäläw)

ሰላም ~ hello (sälam)
አመሰግናለሁ ~ thank you (amäsägnalähu)
Good night (duh-na 'i-duhr)
Good bye (duh-na hun)

Mr. ('a-to)
Mrs. (wuhy-zuh-ro)
Miss/Ms (wuhy-zuh-reet)
How are you? ('in-det nuh-hi)
What's your name? (man ti-ba-la-luh)
My name is... (...nuhny)
This is my son. ('i-suh lij ye nuhw) (MY Favorite phrase!)
I'm married. ('ag-bi-cha-luh-hu)

I'm from the USA. ('i-ne kuh 'a-me-ree-ka nuhny)
I'm lost. (t'uh-fa-biny)
Could you help me please? (lit-ruh-dany ti-chi-la-luh)

Oh, I could go on and on. I bought a small phrasebook for Nate for our anniversary, so that is where I got many of the phrases (the ones without the Amharic). The other's I looked up here. If you are interested, you can read more about Amharic HERE on wikipedia. Many of the phrases are written as if spoken to a male (I didn't feel like typing both), so you would slightly change many of the phrases when talking to a female. Good bye (duh-na hun)! :)