Of the unique features among English, French and my Dholuo

The word Dholuo, which identifies my mother tongue, literally means “mouth of the Luo”. For, traditionally, the Luo took the mouth, not the tongue, as the organ of speech. So the prefix dho (for “language”) comes from dhok, the word for a “mouth”. The mouth was seen as the speech organ because it is from it that all words emerge.

The prefix dho of the word Dholuo derives from dhok, the word for a mouth. Like most ethno-linguistic communities worldwide, the Luo believed that the mouth was the speech organ, which was quite rational because it is through the mouth that all words, the essential elements of speech, emerge. For instance, the Luo word for “tomorrow” is kiny, pronounced as you would pronounce the hypothetical French word quigne.

NYANZA GULF

Kiny also leads to okinyi (the Luo word for “morning”). Babies are frequently named Okinyi. Or, if female, Akinyi or Adikinyi. Yet, as a personal name, Okinyi is common only south of Lake Victoria’s Nyanza Gulf. North of it, Omondi is the more common name for males, derived from the verb mondo, to get up early.

Yet, in Luoland, I know nobody called Amondi. For that circumstance, Akinyi is the universal female name. But even Okinyi and Opondi, the apparently logical male counterparts, do not appear common. Except south of Lake Victoria’s Nyanza Gulf, Omondi appears the common name, apparently derived from the verb mondo, to get up early.

Akinyi is the common female name throughout Luoland. I don’t know why Okinyi does not appear universal and seems totally absent north of Lake Victoria’s Nyanza Gulf. Okinyi is common only south of the Gulf. Kiny (“tomorrow”), the basis of both Luo names, is pronounced like quigne would be if such a word existed in French.

CONSONANT

South of Nyanza Gulf, Okinyi (male) or Akinyi (female) is likely to be the name of any child born during the general time that the Luo consider as “morning” (Okinyi) — that is to say, something like between sunrise and 10 o’clock in the morning. But if the Luo sound kiny were French, it would appear in writing as quigne. If kiny were English, it might even be pronounced like the hypothetical English word kiney.

In French, moreover, whenever the letters G and N are juxtaposed in that order, they are pronounced like the compound consonant ny in Africa’s Bantu and Nilotic languages.

PHONETIC

For instance, the Luo word for a girl is nyako, a sound that a dyed-in-the-wool French man or woman would achieve only if you wrote it as gnaquo.

The languages in which pronunciation coincides with spelling are called phonetic, an adjective with the same etymological root as the English noun phone. Yet English and French are far from phonetic.

In these European languages, pronunciation frequently wildly violates spelling. For instance, if the Luo sound nyako were French, it would appear in writing like gnaquo. Crazy is no name for it.

Mr Ochieng is a retired journalist. [email protected]