Saturday, February 13, 2010
My Ñaño is COMING!
My ñaño is coming, my ñaño is coming and I can barely contain my excitement! In exactly 3 weeks from today Jor, AJ and I will be in Quito picking up my little ñaño from the airport. What is a ñaño you are now dying to know, right?! It's a "brother" in Kichwa, the indigenous language here. Lots of Kichwa words have worked themselves into everyday Spanish in Cuenca so when I tell the friends at the hall that my ñaño is coming they know exactly what I mean, in fact they're probably just a little sick of hearing about it since it's my latest and greatest news to share and I do tell everyone about it. When I tell the young girls in the hall I watch as they exchange glances and wry looks...sorry girls, the ñaño is taken but my ñaño will be bringing along a single friend of his...heheheh.
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how do you say sister in Kichwa?
ReplyDeleteJust need to add an "a" - ñaña :) 18 MORE DAYS!
ReplyDeleteJust like Spanish. Replace the "o" with an "a".
ReplyDeleteBut you may need some correction. In the entry on wikipedia for Kichwa, it says a woman would say "turi" for her brother, as the proper word can depend on who is talking. Then again, you are in Ecuador, and probably know more than a random wiki author.
Totally useless Star Wars trivia: Jabba the Hutt's language, Huttese, was orginally based on Quechua, the mother tounge of Equadorian Kichwa.
No, no correction needed on ñaña or ñaño ~ one day in Cuenca and you'll see it's pretty much the only word people use for brother and sister. Cuencanos are heavily influenced by the indigenous Kichwa, and there are bound to be many Kichwa words that will NEVER come up on the internet (especially local words like ñaña and ñaño). Another good example ~ "Achachai", meaning "It's cold". You won't be finding that on the kichwadictionary.com or wiki! Once you get here, we'll point out all the Kichwa words that have never been (nor likely ever will be) published on the internet, because they come from the vocabulary of the hill people of the Andes ~ and I can guarantee you none of them own computers...they've probably never even used one!
ReplyDeletehttp://en.bab.la/dictionary/spanish-english/%C3%B1a%C3%B1o.html
ReplyDeleteYou might want to dig a little bit past wiki next time...
Alright, alright, I'm sorry. Just pointing out something I read. At first I was just trying to figure out the difference between "Quichua" that I have been reading about in my guidebooks, and the "Kichwa" I was reading about here.
ReplyDeleteActually, the only reason I talked about it is because "ñaña" actually was on the internet, and the example given in the wiki. Here it is:
"As in all varieties of Quechua, the words for 'brother' and 'sister' differ depending on who is using them. A woman must say ñaña for her sister and turi for her brother. On the other hand, a man must say pani for his sister and wawki for his brother. A woman reading "Ñuka wawki Pedromi kan" would therefore read aloud "Ñuka turi Pedromi kan"."
So, the entry is wrong. In my defense, I said there was a good probability it was wrong, what with D being in Ecuador and all. I did try to quickly find an online Kichwa dictionary, but 2 minutes of searching turned up nothing good, so I gave up.
At least you didn't tell me my Star Wars trivia was wrong, that would have been devastating to me.:)
No Biggie. Ecuador is just one of those really wild unpredictable places - there's just not always an answer for everything that goes on here. And thank goodness some things have been spared from internet dictionaries and online research in this world.
ReplyDeleteAye aye.
ReplyDeleteOh... I thought this was about buying an iPod ñaño.
ReplyDelete