5.2 Kaaps
PS
5.2 Kaaps
(© 4th September 2020 by Peter Snyders)
With Unison Music and Literature Publisher Support
Just like a baby would cry with the free-flowing [a] (a), [ε] (ê) and [i] (ie)-sounds at first, with [ɔ] (ô) and [u] (oe) following when the child has started speaking, in like manner the first (primeval) humans made their early sounds. They used these plain vowels to form their first short and simple words. These five primes (most active) sounds still exist in most African languages today including isiZulu and isiXhosa. In the West, as the cultural situation changed, more sounds (vowels) were needed.
To accommodate the bulk of extra words, the Western Europeans inflected (varied) these basic vowels, and so more vowel sounds were added to the inventory of Western languages. Compare the vowel sounds in the words: they, due, time, phone, sound, word, as, both, and many more. These sounds are not in isiZulu and isiXhosa (isi- meaning “language”), and when rarely found in Kora, they were certainly not in the language at the time of the first encounters with settlers. They are more likely loans from a later date.
In Africa and in Asia, such as China, Vietnam and other countries, they use melodic tones to change the meaning of a word. Kora also uses this tonal system.
Western languages also use tones, but it is not part of their inventory (collection of sounds). It also does not change the meaning of a word. For example, the sound comes down to its lowest at the end of a sentence. This is signified with the full stop (.). When there is a longish pause but not as long as a full stop, they use the semi-colon (;). This tone also goes down but not as low as the full stop. This indicates that the theme of the sentence is not yet completed; that there are more sentences, clauses or phrases without a capital letter.
The following, except the question mark, is either not a tonality or the tonality is rather subtle, but it is useful to know. This is the colon (:). It has a slightly upwards tonation higher than the semi-colon but not as high as the question mark. This indicates that there are some examples or extra information to come. It would follow a meaning like ‘example’, ‘such as’ and so on.
The comma (,) is also a pause, but it is not as long as the semi-colon. It is lower than the colon but not as low as the semi-colon. It can even be lower that the semi-colon but not as low as the full stop. It is used for the speaker to pause for a little breath after a phrase. It is also used to separate two thoughts or phrases that could be confusedly read without the comma grouping the two subthemes. We also as a rule use it between two vowels.
This is just to give you an idea of tonation in worldly languages – all of them who use it. There are, however, some nations that take the direction of a few words moving upwards to give a certain meaning to the words. The tones of the words can also move downwards or in a straight line. Each increase, decrease, or maintenance of the tone would give it a meaning. Read up on Kora tonality in the Kora book you downloaded. The Pidgin is the simplest of languages, so tonality, clicks, ejection sounds, nasalization, and aspiration will not form part of its inventory.
There is also the apostrophe (‘). In English, it is generally used to show that two words are joined up, and the apostrophe shows the place where the lost phoneme had been omitted. Examples are don’t (do not), I’m (I am), and there’s (there is), it’s (it is), etc. There is no special tonality in the apostrophe. Finally, there is the question mark (?). It is the highest sound that shows that a question has been asked. It does not even have to be in a complete question. It can be in the sentence: “Huh?”
Try these sounds out for yourself, noting how professionals use them. Some writers use a whole page containing only one sentence. They do this because all the sub-sentences form part of the main theme. We lose the thread in such long sentences. So, we break up the long sentence into sentences of no longer than seven lines (unless the last sentence ends on the eighth). The new paragraph will have its sub-theme. We also do not use a sentence with only one sentence unless it is a powerful sentence that can stand alone on its own theme.
Kora and isiZulu and isiXhosa use clicks as well as ejectives (forceful utterances) to accommodate extra meanings. There is therefore no need to change or add to any of the vowels of our African languages (which includes Kaaps). Any biased and prejudicial connotations towards our own indigenous languages because African linguistic techniques are foreign to European colonialists, should not even be considered. The Buddha grouped people into four. The lowest were ‘those who do not know that they do not know.’ The Buddha recommends that we ‘shun’ [deliberate ignore] them.