How language shapes a mind

Cuso volunteers with Shupe, our Chichewa teacher (wearing red)

For eight months, three of the other volunteers and I took Chichewa classes with a wonderful woman named Shupe (shoo'-pay). It’s the first time I’ve studied a non-European language, and for a long time, I felt very frustrated by how different it is, and struggled to grasp the basic grammatical rules.

In Chichewa, as in other Bantu languages, the formation of almost every word in a sentence is dependent on what the subject and object of the sentence are. There are all kinds of suffixes, prefixes, and infixes that have to be combined to say anything. It’s not even possible to count without knowing what it is that you’re counting, because there’s a prefix that’s related to the class of the noun being counted that goes before the number suffix.

For example, the word for “three” referring to people, (atatu) is different from most of the ways to say “three” to refer to different types of things (zitatu, itatu, or titatu), and it could be highly disrespectful to confuse those (although I've found Malawians to be exceptionally forgiving). Also, the prefixes used for only one person or one thing are different than those used for more than one, so the words for one are m’modzi, chimodzi, limodzi, or kamodzi. Those same prefixes, or variations of them, are used for any adjective.

Plurals are also formed by either adding a prefix or changing the first syllable of a word: Tamati (tomato) becomes matimati (tomatoes), mwana (child) becomes ana (children), and chipewa (hat) become zipewa (hats).

A typical mural on the wall of a meeting room: "Commitment to the development of the project"

Conjugating verbs is also very different. An infix is added to indicate when the action took place (past, recent past, present, habitual, near future, or future), but in addition to that there are also prefixes, infixes, and suffixes to indicate who is performing the action, and to whom or what that action is being done.

At the simpler end of the spectrum, “Tionana” means “we will see each other”, and is a common parting remark. “Ti-” = we, “-ona-“ = see, “-na” = each other, and the absence of a specific tense infix indicates that the speaker is referring to the near future.

At the more complex end of the spectrum,“Munandithandiza” means “You helped me.” “Mu-” = you, “-na-” = past tense, “-ndi-“ = me, “-thandiza” = help.

"Ndidzakuthandizani" means "I will help you." "Ndi-" = "I", "-dza- is the future tense, "ku-" = "you", "thandiza" is "help", and the "-ni" at the end makes this a polite "you", rather than an intimate or very informal "you".

Playing "This little piggy" with some village children

Although gender roles are very clearly demarcated in Chewa culture, all pronouns in Chichewa are gender-neutral. Consequently, when many native Malawians speak or write in English, they often use the wrong gender pronoun, referring to a daughter as "him", or writing "John and her wife Esther." I realize how salient gender is to me when that happens and I feel momentarily disoriented. I had assumed every language would make the same clear distinctions between male and female that English does.

In fact, not only the gender but the number of people being referred to is often ambiguous, because to speak about someone respectfully in Chichewa, one always uses the plural. People only use the singular version of a pronoun or person-word to refer to children, intimate friends, or people unworthy of respect. People even use the more formal terms of address for their spouses. I felt very proud of myself one day when I unintentionally slighted a vendor on the street, and was able to understand from the singular pronoun he shouted after me that I was receiving an insult.

I had also assumed that how we define family relationships would be the same — but of course it's not. Depending on whether one's culture is matrilineal or patrilineal, the children of either one's mother's sisters or father's brothers are also one's brothers (achemwene) and sisters (achimwale). A maternal aunt or stepmother (in some cultures, a man may have multiple wives) is called younger mother (amai a'angono) or older mother (amai a'akulu). Similarly, a paternal uncle is younger father (abambo a'angono) or older father (abambo a'akulu). Other aunts and uncles are azakali and amalune respectively. Aunts and uncles by marriage are all apongozi, the same term used for mothers-, fathers-, daughters-, or sons-in-law. Sisters- and brothers-in-law are alumu, and grandparents are agogo.

An interesting insight into language and division of labour

Another interesting difference is that except for black, white, and red, colours are not single words, but the phrase, “to be seen like” (kuoneka ngati) followed by something of that colour: the sky, leaves, ash, the sun (kumyamba, masamba, pulusa, dzuwa). As efficient as it is to have one word for a colour, metaphor and association do create much more meaning and emotion.

When counting in Chichewa, numbers greater than five are composites. seven is expressed as "five with two" (zisanu ndi ziwiri, and variations of that); seventeen is "ten with five with two" or khumi ndi zisanu ndi ziwiri. Needing so many words to express larger numbers suggests that people here may not have needed to use those often. Do you really need more that five cows? And if you have a lot more of them, is it enough to just know that?

Gule Wankulu ("Big Dance"), an integral part of traditional Chewa village life

Once Chichewa started to make more sense to me, I became able to recognize some ways in which it’s clearer and easier than English, and also how differences in language reflect the differences in culture. These longer phrases for colours and numbers to me reflect the slower pace at which people communicate with each other, taking their time to have a conversation rather than just a transaction. Learning these words, I recognize how thoroughly I’ve been trained to be efficient and time-oriented to the detriment of creativity, poetry, and relationship.

Efficiency and time-orientation do have their value, of course. These days, the English words for colours and numbers have been adopted into the Chichewa language, and even people who know no other English use these. This makes communicating in the marketplace much easier.

With one of the other volunteers and Shupe in front of a colourful building in the nearby market

Another way in which I see language reflect culture is how the verb and sentence structures speak to the interrelationships between things. Culturally, everything is about what family, village, tribe, etc. someone comes from, what religion they belong to, how they fit into the mosaic of things. The first questions people ask when meeting me are, "Where do you come from?" and "Where is your family?" People's relationship with land and environment is also more intimate. Almost everyone here is a farmer; even middle-class professionals in Lilongwe have plots of land on which they grow at least some food.

The relational perspective in Chichewa seems much more accurate, since we are indeed all part of our environments, cultures, families, etc. – but it’s a huge leap for my brain. Nothing and no one is separate or individual, as I’ve grown up thinking about things.

"Kalibu?" The guards inviting me to eat nsima, greens, and stewed soy and tomatoes with them as I enter our courtyard

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

See more: Malawi album #5 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.