#Kinyarwanda

[unbearable-lightness-of-ink]

so anyway I really did start compiling a kinyarwanda/english dictionary/grammar guide out of all the random resources i've been hoarding on my phone (it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be better than searching multiple different files every time I'm looking for some obscure vocab or grammar detail) and one of these resources is some PDF uploaded to the internet archive and it's... not great. from the writing and contents it's clearly

old (my guess is mid-1900s. I don't remember colonial and post-colonial Rwandan history specifically enough to guess well here, but based on some of the typos, it was done on a typewriter and then scanned with OCR)

intended for missionaries (some examples of actual sentences in the "translate this" exercises include "I praise God because He saved me and He gave me peace and joy" and, I shit u not, "The blind man cannot see the Word of God, but he can hear and he can know the love of Jesus." it's. well for one thing this is basically useless vocabulary for me, and also it's cringe af)

written by someone who was not a linguist (at one point instead of just saying "if T is preceded by an unvoiced consonant, it turns into D" they give you a list of every unvoiced consonant and then recommend that you invent a mnemonic phrase to memorise the list?! why?)

written by someone who was shit with pronunciation (legit so many places where they're like "there's no way to describe how this sounds, you just have to ask someone to make the sound for you" my good bitch the phoneme might not be in english but I could describe it just fine. skill issue.)

but the thing that's really killing me about all this is that every time they try to explain tonal vowels or phonemes that aren't in english, they tell you to "ask an African to say it for you."

an. an what now? an African? babe there are approximately 1.5 billion people in Africa. Africa accounts for about 20% of the land on earth, it's the second-biggest continent, and it has an estimated two thousand living languages spoken throughout the continent.

and kinyarwanda? it has maybe 15-25 million native speakers, depending on which source I trust. it's spoken (almost*) exclusively in rwanda, which is the 9th smallest country in Africa--and that roundup includes islands off the coast of the continent. It has the second densest population in Africa but it still only has like 13 million people in it. and it's a very unique language. its closest relatives do not have the same phonemes that kinyarwanda has, and its closest relatives are also spoken by relatively few people. I don't know enough about kirundi to say much but I do know that it doesn't have the same vowel tones in all instances and it doesn't have some of the same consonant clusters. and the more widely spoken related languages that you're more likely to stumble on someone who knows how to speak? they're even worse for a reference; ask someone who speaks kiswahili to pronounce kinyarwanda for you and they will not pronounce the difference between, say, umuceri (rice) and umucyeri (berry), or the tonal difference between words like umusambi (floor mat) and umusambi (crested crane).

so, like. it's just absolutely sending me, this random white lady who was obviously a colonialist missionary, bothering to make a whole language guide to teach me how to proselytise in kinyarwanda, but along the way she's like "just ask an african--any african--how to say this" lady less than 1% of them are going to know this language but go off i guess

*almost because there's the diaspora of rwandan expats and immigrants in other countries plus the banyamulenge which is a whole aspect of it that has so much fraught history on all sides that I won't even try to say something intelligent about it, it's totally not my place/something i'm educated enough about, but to my knowledge most of them speak dialects that are more or less dissimilar to kinyarwanda; kinyamulenge and kinyabwisha are not the same as kinyarwanda. take it from my munyamulenge coworker who could never pronounce the difference between c and cy

[annasellheim]

Look, sometimes you need to interrupt an ESOL lesson to ask the translator on the phone to tell one of our senior students that they look cool as hell.

[nonenglishsongs]

The Good Ones - The Farmer (Kinyarwanda?)

[diamondnokouzai]

today my special esl student (special as in not spanish speaking) asked me to come see him play the flute in band 🥹

[enfaeutchie]

That POG moment when a language's /w/ patterns as velar

[nullifier]

There's some girl here from africa who doesn't know english that great and only knows a bit of french and kinyarwanda and it's real fucked up cause google translate doesn't do it well so staff doesn't know what to do with her all the time...

[aikinyarwandavideogenerator]

[onlinetranslatortool]

Want to translate fast? Online translator tool is a free and efficient tool to translate Kinyarwanda text into English. You can translate words, sentences, even paragraphs too!

[kweza]

how many languages do you speak?

two: french and english

[illuminaryart]

No Greater Love. 16x20 watercolor and ink. Each "I love you" was written by a native speaker or student of that language. Afrikaans, American Sign Language, Arabic, Bijabo, Burmese, Czech,  Danish, Dutch,  English, Faroese, Fijian, Finnish, French, German, Greek (koine), Greek (modern), Gujarati, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Icelandic, Ilakano, Indonesian,  Italian, Japanese, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kreyal, Kriol, Latin, Latvian,  Lingala, Luganda, Malay,  Malay, Mandarin,  Melpa, Mongolian, Nakui, Nepali, Papua New Guinean Pidgin (three versions), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian,  Runyankore, Russian, Samoan,  Sesotho, Slovak,  Sorimi, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil,  Tedim, Thai, Tohono O’odham, Tongan, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu.

[bunjywunjy]

hi, I was using Google Lens Translate on the Pokémon post I reblogged from you earlier to read the Japanese image captions, and the auto-detect translation seems to think your username means "my love" in Kinyarwanda/Rwandan.

did some reverse translation investigations, and it's probably interpreting bunjywungy as a misspelling of "mukunzi wanjye"

anyway, I don't feel any particular way about this other than it was a funny/sweet little moment reading through this cute Pokémon post and seeing that I had reblogged it from "my love". thanks for putting cool stuff on my dash, I hope you're having a good day.

I LOVE THIS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING

[unbearable-lightness-of-ink]

have I mentioned I would die for ulysses

[hadeth]

عَنْ عُقْبَةَ بْنِ عَامِرٍ الْجُهَنِيِّ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏:‏ ‏ "‏ الْجَاهِرُ بِالْقُرْآنِ كَالْجَاهِرِ بِالصَّدَقَةِ، وَالْمُسِرُّ بِالْقُرْآنِ كَالْمُسِرِّ بِالصَّدَقَةِ ‏"‏ ‏.‏ حديث صحيح - سنن أبي داود ١٣٣٣ - والترمذي ٢٩١٩- والنسائي ١٦٦٣

Narrated Uqbah ibn Amir al-Juhani: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: "One who recites the Qur'an in a loud voice is like one who gives alms openly; and one who recites the Qur'an quietly is one who gives alms secretly." Hadith Sahih - Sunan Abi Dawud 1333 In-book reference : Book 5, Hadith 84 | Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2919 In-book reference : Book 45, Hadith 45 | Sunan an-Nasa'i 2561 In-book reference : Book 23, Hadith 127

قال الترمذي: وَمَعْنَى هَذَا الْحَدِيثِ أَنَّ الَّذِي يُسِرُّ بِقِرَاءَةِ الْقُرْآنِ أَفْضَلُ مِنَ الَّذِي يَجْهَرُ بِقِرَاءَةِ الْقُرْآنِ لأَنَّ صَدَقَةَ السِّرِّ أَفْضَلُ عِنْدَ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ مِنْ صَدَقَةِ الْعَلاَنِيَةِ وَإِنَّمَا مَعْنَى هَذَا عِنْدَ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ لِكَىْ يَأْمَنَ الرَّجُلُ مِنَ الْعُجُبِ لأَنَّ الَّذِي يُسِرُّ الْعَمَلَ لاَ يُخَافُ عَلَيْهِ الْعُجْبُ مَا يُخَافُ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ عَلاَنِيَتِهِ ‏.‏ جامع الترمذي

العِباداتُ كلُّها يَنبَغي أن تَكونَ خالِصةً لوجهِ اللهِ، ولا يُطلَبَ بها الرِّياءُ ولا السُّمعةُ ولا التَّفاخرُ بينَ النَّاسِ؛ لأنَّ اللهَ غنيٌّ عن كلِّ ذلك، وإنَّما يَقبَلُ مِن تلك العباداتِ ما كان خالِصًا لوجهِه سبحانَه. وفي هذا الحديثِ يَقولُ النَّبيُّ صلَّى اللهُ علَيْه وسلَّم: "الجاهرُ بالقرآنِ"، أي: الَّذي يَرفَعُ صوتَه بالقرآنِ في القِراءةِ، وخاصَّة أمامَ النَّاسِ؛ "كالجاهرِ بالصَّدقةِ"، أي: مِثلُ المُجاهِرِ المُعلِنِ لصَدقتِه أمامَ النَّاسِ "والمُسِرُّ بالقرآنِ كالمُسِرِّ بالصَّدقةِ"، أي: مَن يقرَأُ في سِرِّه ويتَدبَّرُ بعَقلِه مِثل الَّذي يُخفِي صَدَقتَه عن أعيُنِ النَّاسِ، والإسرارُ أفضلُ في حَقِّ مَن يَخافُ الرِّياءَ؛ لأنَّ الإسرارَ أبعدُ عن الرِّياءِ؛ فإنْ لم يَخَفْ، فالجهرُ أفضلُ بشَرْط ألَّا يُؤذِي غيرَه ولا يتأ��َّى بقِراءتِه أحدٌ كمُصلٍّ أو نائمٍ أو غيرِهما، والعملُ في الجَهرِ أكثرُ، ويَتعدَّى نفْعُه إلى غيرِ القارئِ؛ ويُوقِظُ قلبَ القارِئ، ويَجمَع همَّه إلى الفِكر، ويصرِفُ سمْعَه إليه؛ ويطرُد النومَ، ويزيدُ في النشاط؛ فمتَى حضَره شيءٌ من هذه النِّيات؛ فالجهرُ أفضلُ؛ فإذا كان الجهرُ يترتَّبُ عليه مصلحةٌ، فهذا الجهرِ أوْلَى، وإذا لم يَكُن في الجَهرِ مَصلحةٌ فالإسرارُ أَوْلَى، فهذا أفضلُ مِن هذه الناحيةِ. وقيل: ما كان فيه التدبرُ أتمَّ فهو الأفضلُ. وفي الحديثِ: مدْحُ الإسرارِ بالعِباداتِ معَ إخلاصِها للهِ. وفيه: بيانُ أنَّه لا أجْرَ لِمَن يُرائِي بعِلْمه وقِراءَتِه. الدرر السنية

Reciting the Qur’an secretly is better, just as giving charity secretly is better, for the sincerity involved and the avoidance of show-off and self-admiration, unless if openness is required for some need or benefit, like teaching the Qur’an to others. Hadith Translation/ Explanation : English Urdu Spanish Indonesian Uyghur Bengali French Turkish Bosnian Sinhalese Indian Vietnamese Tagalog Kurdish Hausa Portuguese Malayalam Telgu Swahili Tamil Burmese Thai German Pashto Assamese Albanian Swedish Amharic Dutch Gujarati Kyrgyz Nepali Yoruba Lithuanian Dari Serbian Somali Tajik Kinyarwanda Romanian Hungarian Czech Malagasy Italian Oromo Kannada Azeri Uzbek Ukrainian: https://hadeethenc.com/en/browse/hadith/65055

[nonenglishsongs]

ELEMENT EleéeH, Ross Kana, Bruce Melodie - FOU DE TOi (English, Kinyarwanda*, French)

[indecisiveavocado]

so you're mad about israel and only israel

why?

Because it is committing genocide, actively funded by me or my government, and the people committing genocide are not the people indigenous to the region. also, it should have a potential killable population over 6 million (my very rough upper estimate for the population of palestine). And they should be targeting civilians. Maybe attacking refugee camps.

Ok! Bit restrictive, but reasonable enough.

So I expect you to act precisely the same as you do regarding Israel/Zionism/Jews/etc with the following:

Chinese

Rwandans

Why?

China: Uyghur genocide:

Genocide

Unless you avoid all Chinese products, funded by you. In fact that's even worse because it's possible but difficult to avoid Chinese products, as opposed to paying taxes.

Han Chinese are not indigenous to the region.

There are over 11 million Uyghurs

They target civilians.

Rwanda:

Genocide in the Congo, backed by them. (Genocide Watch lists the Congo at an Emergency level, same as China.)

The main indigenous group in the region are "Nande (North Kivu), Bashi and Barega (South Kivu)". There are minorities of Kinyarwanda, but they are mainly descended from refugees of the Rwandan genocide. And there are communities of pygmies. The main group in Rwanda are the Kinyarwanda.

The US and UK fund this via Rwanda

Horrific atrocities have been committed, like massacres.

A refugee camp was shelled.

That's rather restrictive, though. Maybe you have more decency than that.

Let's try this:

It's committing genocide, there's a potential killable population of over 6 million, and my government is staying silent - which is, practically speaking, encouraging it.

In which case, in addition to Chinese and Rwandans, you should (depending on who your government is silent about) be outraged over the conduct of (all of these are listed by Genocide Watch as emergencies, ie genocides)

Central African Republic

ISIS, Ba'athists, etc in Iraq

Iran

Turkey (Kurds in Syria are being attacked)

Mali

South Sudan

Nigeria (non-government I think)

India

Afghanistan

Russia

Sudan (bonus: non-indigenous against indigenous)

Egypt (bonus: non-indigenous against indigenous)

Ethiopia

and many more!

So why are you silent?

[ihavestolenyourkneecaps]

So, I tried to translate what was in the new sonic screwdriver with the Sherman's Gallifreyan.

And it's a bunch of non sense, it thanslates to "the bonguj fgifeet the nefechachp fa the otshavvi the bepnefeba fa".

There are some letters that are ambiguous "the bonguj fgife(e?)t the nef(e?)chachp f(a/e?) the otsha(vi/vvi?) the b(e?)pnef(e?)b(a/i?) f(a/e?)".

Taking the frase that is ment to be "the sharpness of the tongue defeats the sharpness of the warrior", the writing becomes:

Which is doesn't looks like the sonic, just the 4 "the"s that are equal, and it's supposed to be written in Kinyarwanda, also known as Ikinyarwanda or Urunyarwanda, that's the language spoken in Rwanda, but the meaning that the show gives us translates to "ubukana bwururimi butsinda ubukana bwintwali".

Which is nowhere close to the writing in the sonic.

With that said, I think the people who made the sonic searched a little in the fandom for our way to write in gallifreyan and then took what they found pretty and merged together because it looks like gallifreyan and the system is 99% Sherman's Gallifreyan but there are some discrepancies.

If you look in the second symbol what was supposed to be "ngu" is written wrong, the circle has 4 lines but the maximum amount is 3, I consider that to be "ng" + "u" because normally we would merged together the line of the "u" with another symbol of take it to the border or merged it with one of the lines in the "ng".

You can see as well in the third that between the "fe" and the "b" there's something, I read that as and "e" but it doesn't really makes sense if you consider that it has before it another "e", when there are doubles of a letter we just make it twice.

The sixth and eleventh are equally strange, it seems to be an "f" with something, it could be an "o" but it's too big and not close enough to the border, the only one I could think that its close enough it's the "a", because it's quirk is that it's always far but for the outside, this one is "far" but for the inside.

The eighth it's as well interesting, in what was supposed to be a "vi" the way is written makes it look live a "vvi". And the last, the tenth has what looks like a "ba" but looks like it has a dot in it but there aren't any single dots only two or three dots, so I just ignored it.

And I'm not even gonna talk about the slashed "e"s because that formed a pattern and I just assumed it's on propose.

In conclusion, or I'm dumb and can't read or they just put something inspired in the Sherman's Gallifreyan to look pretty and make us go slightly crazy but in the end it's just the the normal gallyfean that doesn't means a single thing.

Ps: sorry for any wrong words or terms, I'm brazilian and my english isn't perfect.

EDIT: I'M DUMB, thank you @mesimees and @typeforty for explaining the actual way of reading this, @mesimees rebloged this with a pretty simple explanation on how really to read this, thank you for the correction and it's really fucking awesome to discuss conlangs linguistics