Sounds Just Like Me

The following was recently posted by my roommate… making me the personality changing roommate in the story

More recently, my roommate and I had several groups of friends come by our apartment in quick succession. Again, we found ourselves switching from one language to another, depending on the needs of the group. I was amused to see my roommate’s personality go through several drastic variations as we switched languages – she became more playful, childlike, or sarcastic depending on the language being spoken. She was more than happy to point out the same kinds of variations in my communication styles.

After everyone had gone home, we thought about the possible reasons for our communication schizophrenia – was it that each language has a preferred style of communication? Were we mimicking our favorite teachers? Were our own insecurities leading us to act or speak in ways we wouldn’t in our native language?

It’s something that I continue to ponder as I tutor several local students in English. It’s possible that the tone and style of English that I teach them will reflect my personality more than theirs – that they will come across as shy, or cautious, or indirect because of my style of communication, when in their own language, they wouldn’t choose to speak that way at all. And of course, it’s also quite possible that the person I think I’m getting to know in English isn’t the real person at all; just layers and layers of learned vocabulary and grammar habits.

International Coffee

I remember my first trip back to Canada. At that time I was overwhelmed at the speed my brain could process it’s native language and therefore the amount of information I gathered through unintentional eavesdropping. I would be at a large group event and struggle focuses on the person in front of me because my ears, rejoicing at hearing the familiar buzz of English, would pick up bits and pieces of everyone’s conversations. I knew about the new puppy one family had gotten, or how poorly one women’s son was doing in his high school physic’s class, I knew the girl across the way was waiting to hear back from the cute guy she had gone out with the other night and I knew who had spent more on redoing their kitchen. At that time I still lacked the listening skills to be able to interact with the world around me to that level in Uyghur.

Now that I have been living overseas for almost six years I find myself equally as subconsciously taking in the event s of the lives of my neighbours in Central Asia. I can understand when they call their friend from the bus to inform them that we are running late because we are stuck in traffic. I can hear the girls sitting behind me comparing answers they got on their afternoon math test. I know that the women and her daughter were just looking at dresses for the daughter’s upcoming wedding. The more I understand the more I feel more like a part of life there. I have also come to realize how similar the topics of small talk are around the world.

That is why I was shocked last week when I was sitting in Timmies sipping my double double (for all you none Canadians out there, that is a Tim Horton’s coffee with two cream and two sugars). Since I was sitting at the table alone I found my attention being drawn to their other coffee shop customers. I quickly realized that I couldn’t understand a word of what anyone was saying. The group directly behind me was speaking Cantonese, I think. Those to my left sounded more German, on my right I heard the semi familiar sounds of Spanish… or was that Protégées they were speaking. Finally above the din of the mini UN meeting taking place over several hot cups of coffee I distinctly heard someone say “while my granddaughter just loves her kindergarten teacher”. There it was, there was my mother tongue, there was a group of people speaking English again, there was the familiarity that I was craving.

My trip to the coffee shop left me slightly in disbelief at how much I miss even in my own context, but it also left me very proud to be a Canadian. If one coffee shop is any sort of microcosm for the rest of our nation, than here in Canada we have something quite unique. Here we are sounded by the world, people from all different ethnicities, countries and backgrounds living in one area, not to mentioned joined by the common love of one great cup of coffee ( no this blog post was not sponsored or paid for by Tim Hortons- but I wouldn’t say no to a free cup of coffee if their offered it).

Don't You Look Pretty

Growing up my family and I joked that we should be called Amish R Us due to our love of all things navy and subdued. Since coming to Central Asia I have expanded my definition of what looks great. In fact I am to the point that I may actually even agree with the dictionary.

I don’t know if it was a translation mishap or a perfect expression of the culture. The word gaudy is defined in English as: ostentatiously or tastelessly showy or ornamented. The English -Uyghur dictionary translates this same word as beautiful. Perhaps it is their love of colour, lace, sequins, rhinestones and sparkles that make an over the top item look downright pretty.

As Red As a.........

Language learning is an ongoing game. I have mentioned before some of the common mistakes I make in pronouncing Uyghur. Things like; "verb" and "elephant" are only one vowel apart, as are "think" and "house", and "love" and "slaughter". So our teacher likes to laugh when we tell her we "conjugate elephants", have a guest "staying in our thoughts", and that God "slaughters us".

Now a days the challenge is to get deeper into the language. I want to learn how to use idioms and express myself using metaphors and similes that resonate with the culture. To learn how to describe things in a natural Uyghur way.

Today we found out that when Uyghur people get angry, they turn "as red as a lung". When they blush, they turn "as red as a gobbler". It took us two days to remember the English equivalents; sometimes our English atrophies from lack of use. But now I know we beet red when a person is angry. I tried this expression on my teacher, but realized that it fell flat since she had never seen a beet much less eaten one. The comparison was empty to her.

Moreover, Uyghur people don't "get angry"; their "anger comes upon them". They don't "get hungry", they "have an open stomach". Clothing isn't "immodest", it is "open". "Pregnant women" are "two-layered" or "heavy-footed". People who are "generous" are "wide-stomached".

"Putting requirements on a woman" means to propose to her. When your face "turns to the color of a wall", it means you've become pale. To "look to someone's road" means to wait for them.

The Uyghur people give their strongest promise to attend an event by saying "can't not come". (double negatives always threw me for a loop in English). They have the same word for "bitter", "spicy", and "angry". There are two words for jealous--one with a good connotation (like "I'm so jealous of your new car") and one with a bad connotation (I'm jealous of my brother"). They have ten or twenty expression for happiness depending on situation, mood, and accompanying actions.

The heart also plays a key role in the unified language. To have "half a heart" means that you're sad. To "lift someone's heart" means to comfort them. To "put someone's heart on the ground" means to disappoint them.

Korean Soap Opera Junkie

Uyghur people love to watch soap operas. They tend to be a lot cleaner, and a lot cheesier than American ones. The plot is always one of tragic or ill fated love that overcomes family oppositions or near death. In the end their love is always stronger because of it.

Sometimes when I am out with some of my old lady friends they will start talking about the characters on their favourite soap as it they are real people. In fact, I once asked what hospital a car accident victim was in so that I could go visit her, only to find out she was a Korean soap opera fictional friend.

The other night I had on the TV and accidentally got hooked into watching one of these unfolding plot lines. It was captivating....before I knew it I was hooked trying to figure out who was whose real son, and why he couldn't be with the the girl he loved. The hour was up quickly and so was my study break....only as soon as that episode ended the next one started. I didn't have to wait to find out what happened next. But hour two bleed into hour three and hour three into hour four. They just kept showing the same soap opera. Finally after five hours of sitting there (a wasted evening) the series ended. The next day when I talked with my local friends I finally felt in the loop. I asked if they normally play the whole thing back to back like that. I was surprised to learn that they had started that series Friday night and had played all thirty hours of it over the weekend. I guess I had only caught the last five, but now I know why some of my friends are so busy over the weekends and why they sometimes cancel our plans.....they are Korean soap opera junkies.

On TV

My former teacher called me last week and asked me to do her a favour. I agreed only to find out that she needed a Uyghur language student to appear on a local game show program. I would be interviewed in Uyghur and asked trivia questions. Ugh, I was nervous. I don't mind public appearances and I don't mind speaking Uyghur, but put them together and the whole thing seemed a little over whelming.

There were two other contestants. The topic of the day was language learning. One of the others contestants was a Uyghur guy who was studying the majority language in University. The other was a majority guy, who grew up going to a Kazak school who was now studying Uyghur in University (the two are related languages). Both were able to speak much more fluently than I. The station had helped by feeding us some of the answers....but not all of them. I also had to sing a Uyghur folk song (for those of you who know me well you know I should never sing in public, much less on TV for everyone in our province to watch), and talk about some Uyghur proverbs. My former classmates came and cheered me on from the audience.

I ended up winning a Uyghur/English dictionary for my computer and a fluffy, white, lacy computer cover. Those are small compared to my new found fame. It might have only been local television.....but ever since I have been recognized on the bus and in the bazaar. The other day when I was walking down the street people started to sing the same folk song to me.

Do you want my autograph?

Roommate 15

Just a month and a half after my roommate returned to the states and I have already filled my extra bedroom with a new person. While yes it was true that I was enjoying the quite and solitude, it is fun to have someone around. My current roommate Patty is a Uyghur girl ( this really isn't allowed, which is why I have never lived with a local before) who is just staying with me three or four nights a week. I actually first meet her via Roommate 13. She is a fun out going girl- as you can likely tell from the picture with the tea cozy on her head, who teachers English at a near by training center. Her language ability is amazing, but she tends to get tired of speaking it after teaching nine hours of class each day, and so when she get in at night she prattles away at full speed in Uyghur. She was originally living with her parents on the other side of town. It took her an hour and a half on the bus just to get into work each morning, now it is only a 20min walk from my place. We share the same hobby of cross stitching, so at night we sit around like a couple of old women with our embroidery in hand chatting about whatever.

I threw her a welcome party the other night so that she could meet all of my friends at once. These parties are always fun and they are a mix of three or four ethnic people groups all speaking together using a combination of three languages. It was funny to witness how peoples personalities changed depending on what language they were talking. When speaking Uyghur people tend to be more boisterous and out going, which is a hallmark of their culture, when speaking the national language they seemed a lot more reserved and so forth. My new roommate is one of the few people I know that can be her same outgoing self no matter what language she is speaking. She really did impress all of my friends with her stories and quick sense of humor. I think it is going to be a good roommate experience.

Over There

I love getting directions in Uyghur. The whole concept of instructing someone to turn left or right at certain major landmarks is completely missing. In fact no matter where you are or where you’re going the directions given are always the same. With a swift wave of the hand you are told “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuu yarda” meaning “Oooooooooooover there”. The length of time that first syllable is held indicates how far off the mark you are. And so you start walking in the general area to which they pointed. When you feel that your travels equate in length to the inflection with which they were given, it is time to find another friendly face and ask them. Hopefully this second person still points in the same general direction and hopefully they only tell you “Uuuuu yarda” (if you are fortunate you are now within sight of the final destination and it can actually be pointed out for you). The problem comes ( as I recently found out again) when the second person points back from where I just came and gives me an even longer “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu yarda”. This back and forth, back and forth trying to judge the estimated length simply by a person’s tone of voice can go on for a while. Or you can do like I did and give up and ask some one in the national language, and get real street names and proper information about what to do when you arrive at various intersections.

Dynamic Equivalent

I was talking with one of my fellow expats the other day about the coming of spring. I was going on and on about how the ‘open weather’ was doing so much to lift my spirits. She laughed and said “that is a really wooden translation from the Uyghur, but I know what you mean.” The sad thing is I didn’t even realize that wasn’t a proper English expression. I have gotten so use to hearing it in Uyghur, or hearing Uyghur English speakers express it in those terms, that I just figured I was speaking my native tongue properly. I even noticed that I phrased it that way in my previous post, which got me to reading over a few recent posts to see if there were other examples of my declining English ability.

It is bad enough that I still speak the national language like a three year old, or that I speak Uyghur like a six year old, but if my English also escapes me I will be left making a fool of myself in three languages. The longer I am here the more I do question my own English… I am forever asking “is that really how we say it? Is there a better way to translate that? What is the dynamic equivalent?”

Disney Goes Uyghur

One of my favourite ways to study language is to sit back and watch a movie. It is amazing the vocabulary you can pick up by just vegging on the couch before bed. The only problem with watching Uyghur movies is that they are all so tragic. In everyone one someone dies, someone is in jail, or being cheated on by their spouse, or something very emotional is happening. The movie covers almost always have a picture of someone bleeding and someone leaning over them weeping and wailing. When ever I watch a disk before bed (most movies come on 2 VCD’s) I tend to go to bed all sad. Here is a small clip I found on YouTube, while there are no words being spoken, I am sure you can see how depressing the story line seems to be.

In an attempt to lighten the mood of my language pursuits I have started to buy Disney movies that have been translated. In the last few weeks my collection has really grown. I have Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, A Bugs Life, Shrek, Toy Story, Finding Nimo, Lion King, Tarzan and others. They are a lot more fun to watch before bed… and are actually packed full of useful vocabulary. I have even found such classics as Gone With the Wind and Titanic in Uyghur.

It is kind of funny to see what they have done with some of the songs in the Disney cartoons. As you can imagine it is hard to translate a song and get the syllabification to fit in time with the music. In some cases they have kept the English song and just have a Uyghur voice over speaking the meaning of the song. In other cases they sing the song in the national language hoping the Uyghur kids will be able to understand some of it. In some movies they have sadly cut the video short by cutting out all the songs. And in others they have kept them in English, some songs like “A Whole New World” have become popular world wide and don’t need any translation.

It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

I got my sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree put up this week, which really gives the whole apartment more of the feel of Christmas.
Also the huge amounts of snow that was dumped on the city this week went quite far to getting me in the spirit of things.

I was out walking on the first day it snowed (before the masses had gotten out to clean off the roads) and actually went for quite a tumble. I am alright… although I was pretty stiff there for a few days. The good news, if you can say that when you slip on the ice in the middle of the road, is that I sounded local while doing it. Out of all the sounds, noises, or colourful metaphors that could have come streaming out of my mouth in this moment of panic… I screamed “Woi Jan”. This Uyghur expression would most literally be translated “Oh dear”. The guy walking behind me a few feet thought it was hilarious to see a foreign girl scream out like an old Uyghur lady that he was still laughing to himself as he gave me a hand up.

When You Read You Begin With FXBETKEOJGLHT

I remember when I was in college and studying Greek, the first time that I learned that they had both a middle and a final character to represent the s sound I was thrown for a loop. I thought it was crazy that a language would have two ways to write the same thing. Later when I got into reading old documents in English I was floored to find out we use to have the same thing. At the time it seemed so confusing. But now I find myself longing for those simpler days.

Uyghur is not a language for the faint of heart. In fact it has three distinct alphabets, some of them have two and three different forms… not to mention that most letters in those alphabets have both a beginning, middle and final form.

For years the Uyghur language was written with an Arabic script, but in the 1960’s the government introduced a new Latin based writing system. This quickly became known as the ‘new script’. But in the 1980’s the Uyghur people longed to get back closer to their Muslim roots and started once again using the Arabic script (in many ways it was similar to the original, but a few alterations were made to the vowel system). This is the writing that we find in our textbooks and all around town. Unfortunately this new Arabic script is so closely linked to the former one, which they choose to call the “old script”. This means the old script is the current one that people use, and the new script is now passé (or old). However since we can’t really use the Arabic when typing on cell phones and other modern devices, they also have standardized transliteration to Latin script (which not surprisingly is different than what was used in the 60’s and 70’s). Finally on the other side of the border they traditionally use a Cyrillic script to express this language. I told you it would make your head spin.

I have spent most of my time focusing on learning the Arabic script that is currently being used on this side of the border. In fact I have been using this language so much that my Uyghur typing speed is almost as fast as my English speed. But in the last few weeks I have been helping a friend transliterate a document into Latin script. Which means I am looking at the Uyghur I am use to reading, but trying to type it with an English like script. I have to read it all over so slowly because sometimes when I am typing Uyghur a F is an A, or sometimes an A is an A, and other times an A is a H... that is of course when the H is not a X and the X is not a SH. I am now so glad that my high school typing teacher taught me to type without looking at the keys, because at this point they would only confuse the situation even more.

Here is a small sample:

سىز مېنىڭ دوستۇم Arabic

Latin transliteration: Siz me:ning dostum

English Translation: You are my friend

Let’s Start At the Very Beginning

Some friends and I have decided to study Uyghur over our summer vacation. This couple has studied a related language in the past so they are pretty familiar with the sounds and grammar, but it is still a whole different language. I have studied for two years, but after being home for a few months, I feel like there is so much that I am forgetting, or just missing all together. There are so many words that are practical to daily life, that never get covered in your average textbook. Our school books teach us words that are in the daily reading or dialogue, they may not be words that are useful to day to day life. And so we decided to start at the very beginning, to help fill in the gaps.

We are having their house helper/ cleaning lady work as our language nurturer ( we are using the Greg Thompson language accusation material, that is his terminology not mine). The thought was that this woman has not been scared or tainted by traditional eastern teaching methodology. She is open and we can use her to help craft our world of ‘here and now’ understandable language. Sadly though, she does not read either English or the national language, so she can not read the nurtures handbook to know how to teach the class. We have had to explain it all to her in Uyghur.

On day one I told her, in Uyghur, that the point or phase one was to just listen to the teacher and her pronunciation. That we were not going to say anything for the first 100 hours of class. We were going to show her pictures or items and wanted her to tell us the name or action in one word. We wanted to listen to her say that word and we wanted to play games where she asked us to point to different items or pictures to make sure we were understanding. I asked her if she had any questions, and then we showed her the first picture. The picture was a man pointing at himself. The elicited word should be “I” or “me” or some type of first person reference. But because I had given such a detailed explanation of the whole language learning process in Uyghur, the teacher figured I must already know those words and went off in a totally different direction. In the end we had to subtlety suggest that maybe this picture best represented the word “مەن” . The founder of the program would not approve of our coaching the nurturer on what word to teach us. Oh well, that is summer school for you. But we are finally off and running. So here is your own little Uyghur lesson. Good luck!

My Amazing Mind Boggling Abilities

I was invited to join my teacher at another Chai she was giving. However this time she had to go early, and I had a few earns to run first, so I promised to come on my own later. We were meeting at the same restaurant as last time (which is only three bus stops down from my school).

When I arrived one of the women was very surprised to see me. She had assumed since I didn’t come with my teacher I wasn’t coming at all. The whole idea that I a rather young (I think she thinks I am only 18 or 19) foreigner could find my way around town with out being guided by a local, seem totally impossible. She kept questioning me: “how did you get here?” “I took the bus” “What bus did you take?” “101” “How did you know to take that bus?” “Because we are only a few stops down from my school” “How did you know what stop to get off at?” “Because I have been here before, so I knew where the restaurant was” No matter how many questions I answered this woman still remained totally amazed at my ability to make my way down the street on my own. The fact that I had been there before, or that I have now lived in this city for over three years, the fact that I can speak some of both of the local languages, or that I ride that bus at least once every single day still left her flabbergasted.

May I Have Your Autograph?

The other day my teacher and I went book store hopping after class. We were in search of a dictionary of Uyghur idioms (which we never found by the way), but we did find a number of other interesting books. It seemed that every book shop we went into my teacher would pull a different book off the shelf, look at it and laugh, then open the front cover and show me that she was the author of the book. Some of them were books that she had worked on almost twenty years ago, and she was surprised you could even still buy.

The area of uyghur scholarship and the printed word is just starting to explode, but for years the number of books was very minimal. I guess that is how I can know so many famous authors. In fact all of my textbooks from the last three years have been autographed by the author. I wonder what sort of a price a signed copy of “Essentials of Uyghur Grammar 2” will fetch someday on e-bay?

Contestant Number 6

Yesterday I took part in my school’s Uyghur speech contest. When I was in elementary school and high school I was big into the speech scene. So in many ways yesterday was kind of a flash back for me. The only difference was that this time my speech was suppose to be in another language.

My teacher had forgotten to mention the contest to me earlier so I had exactly four hours to prepare (all of my fellow contestants had been busy memorizing for three weeks). All of the other contestants were students from the majority people. It ended up being a very uneventful night. I sat there for two and a half hours listening to speeches I couldn’t understand well, either because their pronunciation was so poor, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, or they copied the text from such a high level book, that it was still way above my head.

When I arrived I was quickly ushered to a seat up front and given a cup of tea. I told the student severing me, that I was also a contestant in the competition, and therefore shouldn’t be being given tea. I ended up sitting right next to the judges and teachers, and was introduced along with them as “our foreign guest for the evening”.

My speech itself was a mess. I was planning on just reading the text I had found and written out (my teacher had said that would be okay since I had just heard about the competition that day). It was the story of a father who had two sons. The youngest takes his inheritance and foolishly spends it. But in the end it is a wonderful picture of forgiveness and acceptance. Thankfully I knew the story well, because I couldn’t read my own hand writing, and I had to tell it from memory. The grammar was all wrong, but the judges seemed pleased to be listening to something other than another over acclimating piece about ‘unity in diversity’ or ‘world peace’.

After I was done sharing, one of the senior students got up and gave the others a lecture (in the national language) encouraging them all to study as hard as I do. So that one day all the students in the room could speak as well as our ‘foreign guest’. Talk about wanting to eat your face off.
I guess I don’t have to tell you that I came in first place. I think the minute I walked into that room with my ‘blond hair’ and foreign passport the whole thing was rigged. This means I have to go back tomorrow for round two and sit through another couple hours of speeches.

This picture was taken three years ago at the last school speech contest I attended. That time they ended the evening by having a special photo shoot for all of the "foreign guests" and judges.

Starting Class

We learned this weekend that class was due to start on Monday, the only problem was we didn’t have our class schedule yet. I figured that if I headed to the department heads office first thing in the morning he would be able to tell me when my classes were. But apparently I wasn’t the only one with that idea. Packed into this one tiny office were more than 100 irritated foreign students. Most of them are from Russia or other Central Asian countries. They come here to learn the language so that they can be involved in the export industry, or atleast that is why they say they come. They are all eighteen and this is the first time they are away from home, and they want to party. The office was already hazy from their cigarette smoke when I arrived.

It took me awhile to push my way to the front of the loitering group and pick up my schedule. I waited until I had successfully squeezed out of the office and back into the fresh air of the hallway, before looking at the paper. After just one quick glace I called my classmate to tell her something had to be done about this. We had six hours of introduction to Uyghur, even though this was suppose to be the third year class, we had four teachers, all teaching different things using different books. It was a mess. Not to mention that we had the teacher that was known for only speaking the native language in class, and never using Uyhgur to teach Uyghur, she is also known for being a racist against Koreans ( which both of my classmates are). We also had the male teacher that has a reputation for hitting on his American female students and trying to play footsies with them under the table.

I headed to meet my classmate, but one the road was stopped by one of the schools best teachers. She was headed to the same office. It is the first morning of class, and even the teachers don’t know who they are teaching yet. She asked to see my schedule, and I was pleased to tell her we had her for four hours a week, but would have loved more.

She called twenty minutes later while my classmate and I were still mourning our disastrous schedule. She wanted to meet us in front of our dorm, because she had a plan.

Right after lunch my classmate and I headed back to the office, where the chaos had passed and the air had cleared. We gave the headmaster “beautiful words” as they say in Uyghur. We were sweet and kind, but informed him that in our third year we didn’t need to take an introduction class. We asked instead if we could have more hours we the good teacher. We thanked him for giving her to us last semester as a teacher, and said we had really gotten use to her teaching style. After 30 minutes in his office, listening to him yell at us, and our teachers on the phone ( which he had to do since he had messed up our schedule, but couldn't just change it without losing face) we left the office with a perfect looking semester.

There are only three of us in our class, and we have who I would consider the schools two best Uyghur teachers. We had to forfeit two hours of class a week, but that is a small price to pay to not have your teacher trying to touch your ‘blue eyes or yellow hair’.

After all that craziness, we finally started class Tuesday morning. So I am officially a student once again. No need for withdrawal pains, I am hitting the books with a vengeance.

Slaughtering Sheep and Conjugating Elephants

As any one who has ever studied a new language can tell you, you WILL make a lot of mistakes. The Uyghur culture is largely built on shame and losing face, so they joke: ‘when learning a new language you have to put your face in your pocket’. I just reread that in English and realised that it really doesn’t translate well. Hopefully you understand the meaning; a person can not be scared trying.

For the last several months whenever I am speaking I tend to forget the Uyghur word for “so” or “therefore”, instead I use the national language word. Not on purpose, it was just kind of what came out (it has gotten so bad that I have my classmate kick my under the table whenever she hears me use the wrong one). I recently learned, however, that in Uyghur it sounds very close to the word slaughter, like how they slaughter sheep on the holiday.

Today in class my teacher pointed out another mistake I had been making for months. Every time someone asks me how my Uyghur studies are going, or what I think of the language, I always comment on the verbs. There are over 1200 different ways to conjugate a Uyghur verb. I normally tell my friends that verbs are hard and I am never sure what to do with the back end of them. The only problem is I have not been using the word for verb, instead I have been telling them that the back end of elephants are very messy and I don’t know what to do with them.

Since my face is already in my pocket, here are some other funny things I have unknowingly said over the past two years in either Uyghur or the national language.
-“I rode a carrot” = “I rode a camel”
-“did you fire your seeds?” = “did you shave?”
-“I’ll need to ask the banana” = “I need to talk to the principal”
-“Is someone at the donkey?” = “Is someone at the door?

My New Toy

I grew up all my life hearing stories of great explorers and heroes of old, who traveled to other countries and distant far off lands to study culture and learn language, much like I am doing now. Part of the adventure in these stories were the struggles and hardships faced by the travelers. Things did not come easy for them, and learning to live in a new country was filled with daily challenges. Many of the languages they had to learn had never been written down and the sounds were so foreign that a person would have no idea how to make them.

But this is a modern world we live in, and even the life of the foreign student has in many ways been made easier. Most recently, for me at least, was the purchase of Ernie (if you know me at all, then you know that I always name my computers and other electronic devises). Ernie (his Uyghur name is Irpan) is a electronic dictionary that translates from Uyghur to English and back again. He even has the national language and a Arabic dictionary and is small enough to fit in my pocket (although I would not keep him there for fear of tempting the pic-pockets beyond what they can endure). Ernie goes everywhere with me. The dictionary was designed and built by Uyghurs who are studying English, but it works just as well for us English speakers trying to learn Uyghur.



Since I bought him last week I have started to believe that the company should be giving me a cut of their profits. I have told all of the other Uyghur language students at our school and many of them have made the purchase or are planning to do so soon. And now I am even spreading the wonder of this little toy to all my friends and readers at home. I really am the best advertisement they have.