In Search of Ch, Ch, Ch and Ch

Before starting to learn Gmz, I tried not to read too much of the previously written stuff on the language (so as to not taint and direct my beginning interpretations of the language). However, I did want to understand and use the recently government-approved alphabet from day one so I studied up a little bit on this. Then came the warnings from all those who had worked with Gmz before – “good luck on the weird ‘ch’ sound, I can never get it right.” Thoroughly frightened by what is linguistically described as a voiceless alveo-palatal affricate, I looked at the alphabet chart to see that there are both explosive and non-explosive varieties to this beast. So when you add these “ch’s” to the normal “ch” that we have in English and the explosive variation of it, that makes a total of FOUR  different sounds in the Gmz language all of which you would write with a “ch” (and probably not hear any difference). 

 

So, early on in our study of verbs, I asked for the word “to give” and Wohis said “dach,” which I immediately recognized it as the same word for “to rain.” So, I asked Wohis and he confirmed that “to give” and “to rain” are the same word because God GIVES the rain.” “How nice,” I thought, “the Gmz language reflects God’s giving of rain by using the same verb. That will make a great blog story!” But my story was soon foiled when a few days later, Habtamu, another of my language helpers, corrected me “no, rain is ‘dach’ and give is ‘dach’.” “Oh great,” I thought, “here we go down the ch-road.” Apparently, “rain” uses the normal “ch” and “give” uses the weird, unpronounceable “ch” that I had been repeatedly warned of. However, that was Thursday and when Habtamu came again on Friday morning, he had apparently forgotten the distinction and changed his story to “no, they are the same word.” Curious, I brought up the subject with some Gmz living near us and after some thought and discussion they definitively confirmed Habtamu’s Thursday distinction. Then Saturday, Bizare (our third language helper) came and I presented him with the question only to find him initially noncommittal. So I told him “ok, I talked with your dad yesterday and he said that dach (rain) and dach (give) have different ‘ch’s, can you recognize the difference?” He nodded his head and so I preceeded, “Ok, let’s take the word for “to plant” (danch), is that “ch” like the “ch” in dach (rain) or the “ch” in dach (give)?” Without much thought, his response was matter of fact - “ine inga” (which is flippant Amharic best translated into English as “Heck, if I know!”)

 

So, are there really four different ‘ch’s in the Gmz language? Probably, but that doesn’t mean that they will be easy to distinguish, even for the Gmz themselves. You see, these guys have never read or written anything in Gmz, so they have never had to stop and think about each sound they are making. As literacy and availability of printed materials in the Gmz language increase, so will clarification of this in their minds, if in fact the language actually requires the distinction as the alphabet reflects.