Speakers of the Teribe language reside principally in two separate regions of Central and Southern America.
A majority live in the shared basin of the Teribe and Changuinola rivers in North-Western Panama. A minority live on the other side of the Talamanca Mountains, and are known as Térrabas.
It is possible that the first European with which the Teribes had contact was Christopher Columbus himself on his fourth voyage in 1502.
The conquest of the Teribes only became possible near the end of the 17th century, when the Térrabas were relocated by Spanish missionaries in order to facilitate their conversion to Christ.
In its native tongue, Teribe means something like wise grandmother, which brings us to our story.
The Grandma Stone
“T’ër” is a kind of stone.
Our ancestors would bring corn and a little water to it; they would take the water to it, so that whenever we were ill the illness would lessen, so say our elders.
They would take it home, the water, and they would leave it [at the stone] and come back.
They say that they would also take some dough, corn, and then they would take it back home.
And the elders would leave it there.
If they were ill, the illness would reduce, so they say.
And the elders would call it “grandma”, “grandma”, they say.
In the old days it used to be like that, but nowadays people do not do that anymore.
That is all.
In Quesada’s grammar, this story is given as a single paragraph in both the Teribe and English versions. (In addition, this story comes from a previous Spanish-language grammar, where the translation is said to be quite different).
I have attempted to make the line-by-line equivalency as close as possible, but it was not easy.
T’ër
“T’ër” sök ak koyo e.
Tlapga ëp yë e shko. Diwa yë e shko ga diwa söya ga yë wlo. Ga shi swlo ara gas hi swlo jer wlo, le tlapgaga dë eni.
Söya tlapga dë ba u shko ga diwa söya ba u shko; yë twe ba u shko.
Junyo ba ëp söra jem, le.
E twe söya ba u shko; ye tlapga li dë.
Tlapga swlo ara, ba swlo li jer wlo, jek ga eri, le eni.
E “t’ër” kowe tlapgaga dë; t’ër” le.
Dena shko ga eni; gueniyo ga erishkoga llë shäriëba e shko ame.
Ëng eröe.
For the analysis section, I have opted to go for the Teribe version, where the number of sentences is greater. I did consider giving each sentence its own translation, but I decided against.
I have already included the full English story, and also I would like to throw you fully into the deep end.
As alluded to in the introduction, this t’ër is the /ter/ in Teribe.
Teribe has a closed set of seven verbs which are used to indicate position.
One of these is sök, which means sit or live.
Here is an example sentence containing two such verbs:
Mok paŋ kwara e dbala kwöbö sök. = There is a moon hanging up there and some stars are living there too.
The Noun mok = moon.
paŋ is a Positional Verb which means hang.
kwara is built from two components:
1. kw- = the Round Object Numeral Classifier.
2. ara = the Number one.
In this context, e means and.
kwöbö is built from two components:
1. kw- = same as above.
2. öbö = the Indefinite Numeral, i.e. some.
Teribe has six Numeral Classifiers. The other five are:
klara = one animate thing.
kara = one wide thing.
plara = one long thing.
kwanna = one long & wide thing.
krina = one plot.
In the latter two, the number ara (one) undergoes phonological assimilation to na.
Last, but not least, we have our familiar friend sök.
Teribe has Postpositions, one such being shko (in), which continually pops up many times during this narrative.
Our first example contains slon, which means beside:
Shwoŋ yono buk k’or slon. = He put the dress beside the tree.
The Noun shwoŋ means dress, and the Noun k’or means tree.
yono is the Perfective Conjugation of the Verb yo, which means put.
buk is a Positional Verb which means lie, and it belongs to the same category explored in the previous segment.
Another Postposition is dorko, which means under:
Yok bakwono sbi dorko. = He blew the fire under the cooking-pot.
The Noun yok means fire, and the Noun sbi means pot or cooking-pot.
bakwono is the Perfective Conjugation of the Verb bakwo, which means blow.
In addition, I would like to pre-emptively refute any rumours that the Teribe word for under is in any way similar to the word I call you behind your backs.
I iterate that even though I have never heard this rumour, I would nevertheless like to refute it officially.
wlo is the Purposive Marker. It means something like in order to. A simple example goes:
Yëy dlo shko dan wlo. = We put it under the sun so it dries.
yëy is the 1st Person Plural Inclusive Conjugation of the Verb yë, which means put.
The Noun dlo means sun, and the Postposition shko means in.
dan is a Verb which means dry.
We will discuss Pronouns in the next sentence.
A more complex example goes:
Pa koŋ sögro twër kwanna körkwo zrök wlo klara. = I will give you a knife for you to kill a hen.
pa is the 2nd Person Singular Pronoun.
koŋ is a Postposition which means to or for.
sögro is a Noun which means knife, and it is accompanied by kwanna, which means one long and wide thing.
twër is the 1st Person Declension of the Verb twë, which means give.
körkwo is a Noun which means hen, and it is accompanied by klara, which means one living thing.
zrök is a Verb which means kill, and is followed by the Purposive wlo.
In Teribe, the Purposive comes after a Verb in almost all circumstances. Quesada found only a single instance where it follows a Noun
.This is the first sentence which includes a Pronoun, and since the Teribe Pronoun system has a few quirks, I shall explore it here.
You may be wondering what role the 3rd Person Plural Different Case is. According to Quesada, it works something like the generic they.
One example goes:
Ba sombrero kī joywaraba. = They laughed at his sombrero.
Here, ba means his, whilst the meaning of the following should be clear.
kī is a Postposition which means either because or about.
joywaraba is built from three components:
1. joywa = a Verb which means laugh.
2. -ra = the Perfective Suffix.
3. -ba = the 3rd Person Plural Different Suffix.
Referring to the 1st Person Plural Exclusive, it is worth bearing in mind that Teribe has Spanish-inspired orthography, meaning that /y/ is pronounced more like /j/ in English.
Let us conclude this section with an example of the 2nd Person Plural, since it won’t appear otherwise:
Ta pīzoŋ llë, bomi tlōkwo e bomi shwoŋ pumi sorë! = Teach me something, your language and how you dress!
pīzoŋ is built from two components:
1. pī = a Verb which means teach.
2. -zoŋ = an Imperative Suffix.
llë is a Noun which means thing.
In both appearances, bomi is the 2nd Person Plural Possessive Pronoun.
The Noun tlōkwo means language, and the Noun shwoŋ means dress.
In this context, e translates to and.
pumi is built from two components:
1. pu = a Verb which means wear.
2. -mi = the 2nd Person Plural Subject Suffix.
sorë is an Interrogative which means how.
In Teribe, Question-words appear in the same place as they would in a regular sentence.
The Noun diwa is built from two components:
1. di = a Noun which means water.
2. -wa = the Diminutive Suffix.
Teribe has a number of Suffixes which create new Nouns from old ones.
Other examples of the Diminutive –wa include:
1. kibokwowa = little booklet
2. uwa = little house
Another Suffix is –sho, for example:
1. drönsho = metal (dröŋ = machete)
2. klunsho = clay (kluŋ = earth / soil)
3. dbursho = gold (dbur = money)
4. usho = nest (u = house)
One more Suffix is –yo, for example:
1. pluyo = majesty (plu = king)
2. lanyo = story (lan = talk / chat / tell)
3. kanyo = the bravest (kan = hard.
Our final Suffix is –klo:
1. poklo = bed (pë = sleep)
2. törglo = toy (tör = play)
3. daŋlo = dryer (dan = dry)
Teribe has a number of other suffixes, but you are at liberty to look these up for yourselves in the source cited below.
Before moving on, I would like to bring attention to the curious pairing of drönsho and dröŋ. It says much about the history of the region that the word for metal has a literal translation meaning that thing from which machetes are made.
That alone, should indicate a rainforest people.
(On an extreme tangent: just as Frank Herbert’s Dune is an exploration of the idea of Desert Power, someone could take drönsho and build therefrom a novel exploring the idea of Rainforest Power.
Perhaps it has been done. I shall keep an eye out.)
This schematic illustrates the Deictic-Directional Movement verbs in Teribe.
“Deictic” refers to its relation to Ego, i.e. t- indicates hither, and j- indicates hence.
As for direction, -r indicates downwards, -k indicates “straight”, whilst –m indicates upwards.
These form a cosy sandwich around the root e, which indicates movement.
There are no sample sentences in this section.
Just sit back, and enjoy the serene symmetry on display.
Bootiful!
Divine! Superb! Bellissimo!
In this section, I shall give a “brief” exploration of the Particle dë.
This will be very brief, because Quesada dedicates around 10 pages to the question.
The main theme is Inversion. For example:
Ta kimtëmi. = All of you help me.
Ta kimtaga pāy dë. = All of you help me.
ta is the 1st Person Singular Pronoun.
kimtëmi is built from two components:
1. kimtë = a Verb which means help.
2. -mi = the 2nd Person Plural Suffix.
kimtaga is built of two components:
1. kimta = a Variant of the above.
2. -ga = the Inverse Suffix.
pāy is the 2nd Person Plural Pronoun.
dë is the Obviate Marker.
Quesada describes the former as “Direct/Active” and the latter as “Passive/Inverse”.
I wonder whether the latter is used in order to slow down speech, by increasing the number of pauses between words.
Originally I wanted to discuss Topic Marking in this section, but I need to delve into this theme further before I understand it myself.
Teribe belongs to the Chibchan language family. This is my first time researching a language from this family.
The Chibchan languages range from Northern Honduras to Western Venezuela. Teribe forms its own branch within the family.
Based purely on the family tree, I would guess that the Chibchan languages hail from Columbia, and spread out from thence. This can be seen in the fact that Columbia has both more languages and branches than any of its neighbours.
I may return to this language in the future, or I may not.
This will be a short section where we discuss Plurality in Teribe.
Teribe has the Plural Marker –ga, for example:
domer = man
domerga = men
However, if a Numeral Classifier is present, then the Suffix is omitted, for example:
domer doglo mya = three men
Earlier, we discussed the Teribe Numeral Classifiers, and I used the number one as my example.
Numeral Classification also extends all the way up to the number 9, whose base forms are:
2. pök
3. mya
4. pkeŋ
5. shkeŋ
6. ter
7. kak
8. kwoŋ
9. shkaw
For the numbers from 2 – 9, the Numeral Classifiers are thus.
Animate: do- (2), doglo (3-9)
Round: kwo-
Wide: ko-
Long: ploglo-
Long & Wide: kwan-
Plots: krin-
The Animate Class is the only which has a slight irregularity.
Returning to the Plural Marker, it only appears on the Noun, and not on the Adjective, for example:
walë wolëso = a pretty woman
walëga wolëso = pretty women
In addition, while –ga can be attached to almost any Noun, in practice it is applied mostly to humans and some animals.
This is due to the presence of Animacy Hierarchy, but it is not significant enough to warrant a chapter in Quesada’s grammar.
In this sentence, we have thtrr Temporal Adverbs, these being dena, erishko and ame.
The former translates as formerly, earlier or long ago.
The latter is, in fact, built from two components:
1. eri = a Temporal Adverb which means today.
2. shko = a Postposition which means in or at.
The final, ame, translates to anymore or no longer, probably depending on context.
Here, I shall quickly discuss ga.
Teribe is notable for its lack of Conjunctions, containing only three, the other two being gueniyo (but, however) and miga (but).
ga, meanwhile, is a Linking Conjunction.
It is relatively difficult to translate for the simple reason that it is too easy to translate. Here are just a few examples:
ga = that
Woydë lok ga ta kimtëp. = They want you to help me.
woydë lok = they want
ga = that
ta kimtëp = you help me
As you can tell, Teribe does not have an Infinitive form.
ga = and
Ta ëp twlëno ga tworor bor boy koŋ. = I bought some corn and I gave it to my wife.
ta ëp twlëno = I bought some corn
ga = and
tworor bor boy koŋ = I gave it to my wife.
In case you were wondering, Teribe puts its Possessives before its Nouns.
Thus, bor means my and boy means wife.
Of course, even though the /y/ in boy is pronounced like /j/, I shall leave you here with this peculiar false friend
.There are no fewer than two spelling mistakes in the tables above. I only noticed these after I turned them into JPEGs on Microsoft Paint.
It is easily within my power to correct them, but I do not want to.
Source: Quesada, J. Diego, A Grammar of Teribe (Munich: Lincop Europa 2000)
Today’s book review:
The Populist Delusion by Neema Parvini.
This book is nothing less than the most comprehensive deconstruction and analysis of how power truly works in the 21st Century West.
As trite as such sounds, this is the most up-to-date revision of Machiavelli’s The Prince one could find.
Parvini spends most of the time summarising the scholarship of 8 authors, these being: Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Bertrand de Jouvenal, Carl Schmitt, Samuel T. Francis, Paul Gottfried, Robert Michels and James Burnham.
He also includes many quotations from the secondary scholarship surrounding these scholars, which could make a whole book in and of itself.
With fewer than 150 pages, and a riveting pace, this book should be approachable to the typical layman.
However, if you don’t read the book, here are the main messages you need to incorporate into your political thinking:
1. The Organised Minority will always prevail over the disorganised minority.
2. Revolutions require an organised elite to succeed.
3. Ideologies are a post-hoc rationalisation for power.
On that last point, the authors discussed disagree to which elites truly believe in their ideologies.
This is very much the place where you leave theory and enter the real world.
Here is a quote from James Burnham’s Struggle for the World, which should shine some light on the issue:
“Power Politics” is the only kind of politics there is. The idea of some sort of ‘politics’ that would not be ‘power politics’ is empty, self-contradictory. When someone condemns ‘power politics’, it is a sign either that he doesn’t know what politics is about, or that he is objecting to someone else’s power politics while simultaneously camouflaging his own.
(Emphases added)