Week 2 Learning Experience

Week 2

Word of the Week:  chupa ‘two’

(First word I recognized from previous readings)

Learning Experience:  Where to begin?

           

            Wine and rhyme:  Staring at a pile of books and my computer full of world-wide resources, I asked myself, “Where do I start?”  Since I am focusing on poetry, I should begin with poetry!  I then poured myself a glass of wine and logged onto http://www.ou.edu/wlt/01_2012/audio-zapotec.html World Literature Today, where I first found the recordings of Isthmus Zapotec (IZ) poetry.  My next question was which poet to focus on first.  I chose Víctor Terán because I had come across several English translations by David Shook.  In Week One, I had read a little about Shook, who had spent time in Oaxaca studying Isthmus Zapotec and had worked with Terán personally in translating his poetry.  I began with the poem featured on the website, “I Know Your Body.”  I listened to Shook’s English translation and Terán's reading in IZ three times while following along on the printed form.  The poem is sensuous and much more beautiful when read by Terán in its original language (sorry Shook).  In my goal to familiarize myself with the sound of Isthmus Zapotec, I proceeded to listen to an entire Podcast of Terán and Shook alternating reading poetry in English and IZ (You can listen, too, at http://www.poetrytranslation.org/downloads/24).  I decided not to print the poems, but rather to just listen and notice the spoken language.  I noticed many fricatives (‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds) in IZ, liquids (‘r’ and ‘l’) and nasals (‘n’).  I noticed the vowel sounds a, u, i, o, ɛ, and ǝ.  All IZ words begin with a consonant and end in a vowel.  The intonation of IZ, at least in its poetic form, reminds me of the Italian language.  I also hear sounds that remind me of Japanese.  This is a very strange combination, I know.  The language is very melodic, creating beautiful sounding poetry. 

          I was excited to recognize the word chupa ‘two’, which I had seen in a book at the library.  The poem “Six Variations on Love” lists each variation numerically.  I wrote down the IZ numbers one through six while listening to Terán.  I could hear which word was a number by the pause between it and the lines of poetry.  Of course, the English translation verified this for me, but was not necessary.  By ear, numbers one through six in IZ: (1) tobi (2) chupa (3) chona (4) ta’pa (5) ga’eu (6) shopa.  I have not checked these with actual spellings yet.  It will be interesting to see how close I am.

            After listening to ten poems in both English and IZ, some of them multiple times, I visited the online UCLA Phonetics Lab Data (www.phonetics.ucla.edu/index.html) to look for Zapotec (I did not expect to find my dialect, but hoped for any Zapotec dialect).  I did not find Zapotec, but rather listened to sounds of other American indigenous languages for comparison.  I also listened to examples of sounds that I noticed in IZ.  The website has a very handy clickable International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) chart. 

            ISP assessment checklists:  In following up with my ISP, I created two checklists for assessment purposes.  The first checklist is based on my objectives to determine if I have met my goals by June 3^rd.  I broke down these goals into smaller pieces to create a midterm progress report that will help me know if I am on track or if I need to make adjustments to my objectives.