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Heavy responsibilities for elder aunt among the Logooli

With Seenge Fonesi. She is the elder grand daughter of Isagi and elder daughter of Amugasya. She is often present in functions involving the family of Amugasya. Pic taken on 18/4/2024. The elder sister soon becomes the elder aunt. It is this “seenge munene” (elder aunt) tag that she is tied to many cultural responsibilities – back home. To her marital family she may appear as any other woman, but she is not so in the eyes of her people. Marriage does not steal her away as it would happen with other daughters of the old man. To her, as days go and the old man and woman of the estate are dependents, she becomes increasingly present.  Her brothers also need her for almost all traditional markings. They are marrying, she needs to welcome the new wife. They are giving birth, she needs to come to midwife or “bless” the new born. They are paying dowry she needs to lead the women delegate. There is a conflict she needs to come for a hearing.  And many others. Traditions does not expect her to

Language conflicts again!

Neccy Flossy: Meanings of 'a'
a! .... What!
a''''... Wait a minute
a...a... Nol
aaa'.. Common!
aaaah.. Fed up, sigh
aahaaa. Okay
Aaaaaaa. Trying to think

Lung'afa: Aaaaa...satisfaction in surprise. I hardly got from 'a' to 'ab' in my struggle to write a lulogooli Thessaurus. The book seems will never end! Maybe we do a serious co-authoring.

Lung'afa: Werokamu! Operation tujaze shelves.

Neccy Flossy: Poah - "aaaah ndyio iki"

Lung'afa: You forgot,
-  a? - rhetoric questioning
- Ah! Ah! Show of pain, difficult in breathing
- Aaaaa! Show of satisfaction in oral intake. E.g cold water

More of interjection use. And the uses are galore?

Neccy Flossy: Meda ho Lungafa... Tsia tsia, Kabisa..

Lung'afa: Where are others? Varagiraa?

Neccy Flossy: Vaagoni, itsisa tsifweye. Otodoro tuvashiri

Baba Ndanyi: Kovee kwiiboso

Lung'afa: Tanji m'mare. Munyore zinguru ziukusamul'la mugamba.

Erick Author: 😁😁

Neccy Flossy: "X" this letter is not recognized in Lurogooli language. Nothing begins with "x" nor ends with "x". No word is written with "x" in between. Hopefully the new generation will coppy/adapt coz evindu vichenjanga

Neccy Flossy: "Z"
"zzzzz".. Sound of a buzzing bee (inzuki)
"zzzzz...".. Gone4ever, Kaput, dead, silent, zipped up! 
"zizizi". Cool like ice or Cold like water in the pot /fridge to drink

 ‪+254 727 8882‬: Tsitsitsi. If I can recall what my lulogooli teacher taught me from the story of, " chogo na Mwanzi."

Neccy Flossy: Then actually we don't have a "Z" either, or what? I was born in Mutsulyu village, I always replaced anything "za" with "tsa". Avasitsa valogooli m'mbolandi?

Pat Ngoda: I think we have both "Z" and "tsi"

Baba Ndanyi: We don't have 'ts', we have 'Z', lwa missionaries vagelizaanga kolomba bible yo L'luhya, vahenzaanga compromise words to accommodate other Luhya dialects after choosing L'logooli as the language for Western Kenya, 'ts' was one of the compromise words to replace Z. Even in our talking Z is more pronounced than ts mu L'logooli

Pat Ngoda: I think this makes lots of sense

Lung'afa: Good, on the very mind, 'l' is also 'foreign'. We maintain our 'r' both in speech and writing. 

Kurura - drag. How now write it kulula? 

With those few understandings then ruragoori (not lulogooli) will remain steadfast.

Neccy Flossy: But "TS" is more dignified, we are Luhyas and Bantus, use of both "Z" n "TS" enhances the language and so is "ba" and "VA". We have both to use, I concur.

Lung'afa: But Tutsi is not Tuzi (tūzi - water) 

Ts could be dignified in other tongues as z needs to be dignified in ours. We do not deny Bantu origin but we not talking Kinyarwanda. Hehe

Erick Author: I strongly concur!! I always object to my name being spelt Livumbatsi... I come from the middle of Maragoli where there's no ts. We have z and dz.

Neccy Flossy: We lack eldership in our community who should agree the past, the present and future, and adjust for the benefit and preservation. As a result nothing is preserved and the 'avahenga' are all dying. Amahangari tupu (vutswa) katsotso, kase na kase. Let's embrace what life throws at us, embrace new found words, for language enrichment (of course within the sphere). Safari for example is now English!!

Neccy Flossy: Even there I'd "d" for "dh" 🤭🤭🤣🤣🤣are we serious, really we should seriously be!

Lung'afa: Haha, the 'dh' could be lashed in how to pronounce. We may not write all 'as pronounced'.

Duya is an example. In pronunciation it is more of 'dhu-ya' (not confused by the luo version of japa-dho-la. Where dh is near th. 

More speculations takes us to how we pronounce some sillables.

Nya nye nyi nyo nyu of ruragoori (l'logoori in speech's shortened version) is pronounced with the tongue at the front teeth palate and not like the swahili way of the teeth rested on a flat tongue. 

- Wololo

Neccy Flossy: Nda, Nta, Nka... Renowned liguistics, m'mbee haliki (Hai)?

Neccy Flossy: I saw "ndzazalikaanga yes yainyaandza" in some book recently

Lung'afa: Hehe. Maybe we need a Language Conference.
- We work on that and the outcomes thence be adopted.

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