In Which TJ Builds His Vocabulary

As I think I've mentioned before, there are several words that have crept into the vocabulary here that are almost beyond comprehension. Part of it is a result of globalism and the wide reach of English-spoken pop culture. One example of this was the car I saw this week that had "100% Lil Wayne" detailed on the side. Never mind that somebody just wrote a completely incomprehensible phrase on their mid 90's Honda Civic, all people see are Lil Wayne as probably the third most famous American next to Obama and Justin Beeber. And one of those isn't even American. And depending on who you talk to, the other isn't either.

There are many more examples of where the English language has been masterfully butchered, but unfortunately for some reason all the examples I have are horribly inappropriate for a site that my mother reads (not to mention my grandmothers). So perhaps I'll save those stories for some time when I'm really sad and dejected and just don't care about these updates anymore.


But whats even more fascinating then when stuff gets mistranslated is when entire words get adopted as if the English version was stolen. Granted that since English and Portuguese have latin roots many words are similar, like masticate (which means 'to chew', I say for the benefit of my brothers who are no doubt chuckling after saying the word "masticate" out loud). Except today's post isn't about words getting adopted into the Portuguese vocabulary, its about words getting adopted into Macua.

Yes, Macua. The local tribal language of most Northern Mozambicans. The language that predates the arrival of the Portuguese and Europeans who, as I was informed this week, gave malaria to the Africans. I was told that this is absolutely true because, "before white people came there was no malaria, people just got really bad fevers and then died" I'm not making this up. The language which predates the arrival of white people, it turns out, named things apparently before they were invented.

Every week I'm hearing new ones, but see if you can figure out what the following words are:

1. Tiketchi (accent on the first syllable)
2. Lipsi
3. Shuwinga

I'm not completely naive. I know that in the English language we've adopted our fair share of words from other languages and just given up translating. After all, how would you translate molasses, monsoon, or mosquito (all of Portuguese origin). In America we eat tacos, drive Volkswagens, take our kids to kindergarten, and buy things from Ikea. My readers from England are probably chequeing right now to find all the French words they use everyday (see what I did there...) All I'm saying is that I find the ones in Macua to be pretty funny.

And now for the results of our little quiz. For problem number one, give your self a point if you answered "ticket". You can now safely navigate the complicated rail system in Mozambique (hint: only one line works, and it only goes to one place). For question number two, if you said "lipstick" give yourself another point. On to Final Jeopardy. If you said, "The sound Wayne and Garth make when a babe passes by" you're wrong. Very clever, but wrong. The correct answer is "Chewing Gum"

Thanks for playing. Join us next time for where we try our hand at "Guess which of these animals won't poison you". Just kidding. We're not gonna play that. Its a real thing here, don't get me wrong, but we're not playing it.