Lucia N. Omondi

Dholuo Emotional Language: An Overview

Series A: General & Theoretical Papers ISSN 1435-6473 Essen: LAUD 1995 (2nd ed. with divergent page numbering 2007) Paper No. 361

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Lucia N. Omondi

Dholuo Emotional Language: An Overview

Copyright by the author Reproduced by LAUD 1995 (2nd ed. with divergent page numbering 2007) Linguistic Agency Series A University of Duisburg-Essen General and Theoretical FB Geisteswissenschaften Paper No. 361 Universitätsstr. 12 D- 45117 Essen

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Dholuo Emotional Language: An Overview

1. Introduction: Setting and Definitions

1.1 Geographical Setting of Dholuo Dholuo is an African language spoken by a few million (4?) people who basically live on the eastern shore of mainly in the Republic of . There is, however, a small population in the Mara region of the Republic of . As might be expected in the volatile world society of today, the speakers of the language who are called joluo (sing. jaluo) can be found in other parts of Kenya, and Tanzania, and even beyond, especially in the major cities of the world. The language is classified as Western Nilotic of the Nilotic subbranch of the Sudanic family of the Chan-Nile of the Nilo-Saharan unit of African languages (Greenberg 1970:85-148). This means that as a Western Nilotic language, it is very closely related to the languages such as Acholi, Langi, Alur, Padhola etc. of Uganda and Shilluk, Annak, Nuer, etc. of Sudan. As a Nilotic language it is closely related to the other such as Maasai, Kalenjin, Turkana, etc. in Kenya, and the other Nilotic languages of Uganda and the Sudan like Bari, Dinka, etc.

1.2 Language and non-verbal Communication Perhaps it should not be necessary to worry about defining the term language. However, for reasons that will become clearer later we find it orientationally necessary to consolidate our understanding of the phenomenon. Ordinarily, when people, especially linguists, talk about a language like English, Kiswahili or Dholuo, there is a tendency to be referring to what 1 call microlanguage: the vocal sounds systematically organised into words, phrases and sentences and characteristically studied at the levels of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics in the science called linguistics. We may well be right that this verbal language constitutes the core of any system for communication in a speech community that we call language. But when we consider and observe how speech communities use their language in all aspects of their life, it becomes obvious that the verbal system is only an abstracted part of a larger and more complex system a large part of which still defies our understanding and the rigour required of scientific analysis. Every speech community, for example has a stock of paralinguistic signs as defined in Omondi (1979) which they use independently or together with the verbal signs in their communication. Similarly, each speech community has a stock of ready-made expressions that function efficiently as signs in their linguistic, or even verbal communication: A metaphor here, a riddle there, an allusion to an epic or a folk tale often communicates a message sometimes

1 even more effectively than a verbal code ever could. To that extent, a metaphor such as "Time is money" is as much a part of the as the word boy. By the same token, a paralinguistic verbal symbol such as ouch is part of the English language. We therefore can talk of Macro-English, which would include all these exclamation forms besides the English sounds that organise conventionally into morphemes, words etc. A human language is thus a phenomenon made up of signs, symbols and expressions, the outer boundary of which is yet to be determined. Whatever that boundary, however, as we observe human language in use, the words organised into sentences is only a part of it.

1.3 Emotion as a culture-specific Concept The word emotion is rather like the term language: it is supposedly well known to the extent that its use can be taken for granted, yet it is very difficult to define and even more difficult to delineate. What is an emotion? Or what are emotions? Characteristically, the difficulty in defining emotions as an English word is often circumvented by falling back on definition by example. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English defines emotion as a "strong feeling of any kind" but quickly proceeds to say "Love, joy, hate, fear and jealousy are all emotions." By implication, it further attempts to define emotion as an antonym to the "mind" when it uses the word in the sentence "The speaker appealed to our emotions rather than to our minds". Language Dictionary of Contemporary English similarly defines emotion as "any of the strong feelings of the human spirit" - and adds that "love, hatred, grief are emotions" This sentential example implies that emotion is the antonym of reason: "This speech had an effect on our emotions rather than our reason". The Chambers English Dictionary goes a little further than the others as it enters emotion as "... a moving of the feelings: agitation of the mind: one of the three groups of the phenomenon of the mind- feeling, distinguished from cognition and will." This helps one to build a semantic field for emotion in which it contrasts with cognition and the will. What conies out is that emotion is an experience or is something to be experienced by the human being. Secondly, there is an attempt to locate the experiences somewhere within the human dimensions of body, mind and soul. Thirdly, as the opposite of reason, emotion is a feeling, an experience not controlled by the will. The idea is that what are termed love, hatred or grief in English are intense feelings triggered off from some seat other than the seat of reason or of other cognitively and/or physically premised experiences. If we steer off the rather metaphysical issues of such definitions, we can, like the dictionaries, identify what we mean by examples and proceed.

1.4 Emotional Language in Leech's Classification Emotional language would then be language which is somehow related to emotions. The relationship might be that of denotation. There is the language that names or refers to the emotions; so love and hate are parts of an emotional language because they name emotions.

2 Secondly, the relationship might be one of expression: we would then be talking about the language in which the feelings named are expressed by speakers of the language. When a person A feels what we name hatred, how does she express it? In other words, emotional language is essentially a semantically defined aspect of language: It is defined according to the meaning of the piece of language. Within the scheme proposed by Leech (1974:10-27), which consists of seven types of meaning, emotional language would fall within his fourth type, which he calls "affective meaning", which… (p. 18) "....is often explicitly conveyed through the conceptual or connotative content of the words used." To this extent, emotional language is that language which by virtue of its conceptual, connotative, or even stylistic content or association gives affective meaning or defines any of the emotions. Still, there are words which conceptually mean what is understood to be emotions, and are therefore closely associated with affective meaning, as Leech says (1974: 18): Affective meaning is largely a parasitic category in the sense that to express our emotions we rely upon the mediation of other categories of meaning.... Looking at the functions of language in society, Leech further claims that language has five functions in society: these he lists as informational, expressive, directive, aesthetic, and phatic. Hence, in as far as emotions are feelings, emotional language would be according to Leech's scheme, expressive - and one might add, expressive of the speaker or writer's feelings and attitudes. But again, there is an inevitable overlap because in as much as a speaker or writer can use language denoting emotions to express her feelings, it is often easily possible to express even the same emotions, using words and sentences whose basic content might be designated as informational, directive, or even phatic. For the purpose of this paper therefore, we are going to understand emotional language as that language which either by its meaning or its function in use, expresses any of the emotions we shall identify. In other words, we want to answer the question "How do the joluo express their emotions using their language in the macro-sense of language as defined above?

2. Dholuo Emotional Language

2.1 Suprasegmentals Expressing Emotions To begin with, even before looking for special language which is associated with emotions, it needs to be understood that Dholuo, perhaps like any other language, always has the potential for the expression of emotions in virtually every use of the language (cf. Leech). One might even go further and venture to suggest that every linguistic act has an emotional dimension in that it expresses the user's feelings and evaluation. Feeling is an inherent part of all linguistic expression. These feelings and judgements may be distinguished from what is usually regarded as emotions in that they may not be strong feelings as the dictionaries define emotions. However, this difference is more a matter of degree than of great

3 substance. This is partially in the nature of the emotions themselves. For instance, the emotion named anger can be felt to range from mild disapproval or discomfort with a situation to utter wild rage that might border on insanity. But the degree of an emotion does not change it, and it is difficult to envisage use of language in the usual human circumstances without some or other aspects of the emotional dimension of the user of the language. If this were to be possible, then we would say that every linguistic act is either marked or unmarked for emotions, and that unmarked language is what we would regard as ordinary use, exemplified by sentences with only conceptual meaning, with informational, directive, or phatic functions in Leech's terms. The marked sentences would then have something extra in order to convey or express the various degrees and colours of emotions. If every use of a sentence, a word or a phrase has the potential for expressing the user's feelings (emotions).and in fact does as we propose then every such piece of language would have the provision for the marking of emotions. For Dholuo, at least, it seems that there is always the potential to mark every piece of language with the user's feelings. The degree of strength of the feeling can be varied on a cline, but it is always on some parameter of the same essence. (1) Dhiang' chamo lum. 'Cow is eating grass'. (2) Iwacho ni ang'o? 'You have said that what?' (What have you said?) (3) Bed piny. 'Sit down'. (4) We tugo koda. 'Stop playing with me'. (5) Ndong'a. The utterances in (1) to (5) have content or conceptual meaning, which is what we customarily get from both the writing and the translation. However, a declarative sentence as in (1) can be used to express a lot more including emotions such as anger, awe or surprise or even love. The imperative sentence such as (3) can similarly come with an angry threat or tender care. Such imperative sentences are usually associated with authoritative command, but really, depending on how they are uttered, they can be used to express all sorts of emotions. The name in (5), itself a proper name, may be called to convey to the hearer wrath or love. Even the most tight lipped use of such language, with a deliberate effort to keep off the usual emotions, has that as its emotional stance. That is, the emotional stance whether conscious or not is as if to say "My feelings about this are neutral, or I have feelings about this that I don't want to express". The utterance of a piece of language such as (6), could be, for instance, in the right context with neutral emotion. The context for this may be like when a Luo person has travelled from to Nairobi, and as part of greeting which is usually

4 more than phatic communion, she is asked, perhaps in a neutral way, about the climatic situation at home. She might just make the statement with the declarative unmarked intention. But she might give the facts of the climatic conditions together with her evaluation of it. This might be positive, perhaps because the crops are getting the right amount of rain at the right time; but it might also be negative, for instance, because the rain made driving on dirt roads very difficult. All these possibilities can be built into the two- word sentence in actual use in conversation. (6) Koth chuwe Rain is raining. 'It is raining'. The way Dholuo builds emotions into the core language may need to be properly studied for the sake of proper descriptive adequacy. However, the strategy for lacing the language with the speaker's emotions includes the use of facilities such as intonation, stress variation and emphasis, speed of utterance, in terms of quietness or loudness, which are essentially suprasegmentals. In a different context, the same utterance in (6) can be used to also express shock or surprise. For example, when people are in a house, and there is something important they should have done before it rained, a person who comes out suddenly and notices it is raining can utter (6) in such a way that everyone will read shock or suprise in it and perhaps rush off to do the necessary. In the context where a child had been instructed by the mother to take into the house something that rain can damage, and the child forgot perhaps embedded in playing, the mother discovering this might utter (6) to the child in a mannerexpressing, "I am very angry with you." Just how the strategies are used to incorporate the emotion in the language is really beyond the scope of this paper. Although nobody has described how the strategies function to express emotions specifically, Creider (1978) demonstrates the dimension of language we are talking about. The point we make is that there are resources in Dholuo for expressing emotions in the use of what we call micro Dholuo in Omondi (1995). We go further and claim that some of the resources for this, though not yet understood, are part of micro Dholuo close to what has traditionally been called suprasegmentals. Secondly, besides suprasegmentals, Dholuo has a segmental strategy for expressing tenderness or kindness which involves germination of the vowels in words to lengthen the words as they are uttered slowly. Thus (7) or (8) is the unmarked imperative, which according to the voice and speed may simply mean "Sit down!" (8). But (a), with the lengthened or repeated ee has more emphasis, and (10) with the lengthened ii at the end makes the imperative laced with a certain tenderness. (7) Bed 'Sit (8) Bedi 'Sit' (9) Beeed 'Sit' (10) Beeediii... 'Please, sit down'

5 The tenderness is more than can be expressed by the English please. It is used for instance when in Dholuo, the speaker "hombo" the hearer. The verb hombo translates as something like "to plead with" or "to beseech". (10) is also typical of the sort of language one hears being used in addressing children who are perhaps too shy to sit down. The lengthening of certain words in utterances or sentences gives the same effect, carrying tenderness and kindness: (11) Dhiang' buogo nyathi. Cow frighten child. (12) Dhiang' buogo nyathiii. Cow frighten child, please. (13) Nyathi dhiang' buogooo. Child cow frighten, please. (14) *Nyathiii dhiang' buogo. From the examples (11) to (14), it would appear that the word that germinates for this purpose is the final word in an utterance. This strategy combines with the suprasegmentals mentioned above in a systematic way. (11), for instance, though generally unmarked, can be marked for specific emotional stance using the strategy of emphasis on either all the words or any of them, and of course, the semantic interpretation of the sentence will be different each time. Speed of utterance would similarly mark (11) with a different emotion, such as surprise or anxiety. However, the gentleness in (12) or (13) cannot in fact combine with the emphasis or speed possible with (11) The expression of tenderness and kindness comes with less physical force and necessarily slower speed. In fact it seems that speed is associated with the harsher emotions while slowness is associated with tenderness as a general rule. Shortening nyathi in terms of time of utterance, and perhaps the concomitant value of the segmental sounds in (12) or even (11) makes the utterance severe, expressing the opposite emotion such as anger.

2.2 The Emotional Lexicon of Dhuolo Still within ordinary language of micro Dholuo, there is the emotional language that conceptually, referentially or denotationally names the emotions. This is the emotional lexicon of Dholuo. Just as there is a lexical field of domestic animals, this would be regarded as the lexical field of human feelings. (15) shows some examples of this lexicon.

(15) a ng'uono - kindness / generosity mor - happiness luoro - fear, cowardice hondho - anxiety kuyo - sorrow / sadness

6 muolo - kindness, gentility chir - bravery dhil - bravery ilo - happiness/euphoria hera - love gombo - covetousness / desire hawanya - maof - muluma - guondo - meanness / selfishness sin - gloom ang'e - regret romo - satisfaction heto - to hate mit - pleasure her - pleasure wasiwasi - worry, anxiety oruma - sympathy mbawasi - pity, compassion nyiego - envy, jealousy sunga - pride nyadhi - buok - surprise, shock, fright achaye - contempt luor - respect sadha - grudge sigu - hatred jok - disgust charo - spite bwok - fright yiem - vanity sasia - (emotional) turmoil sira - emotional violence or heat mima - emotional blackmail ndenga - fear mrima - anger geno - hope liswa - emotional outburst mbola -

7 gero - fierceness (15) b wichkuot - shame (headswelling) ichwang' - anger (stomach burning) ichkuar - meanness (stomach red) ichlit - meanness (stomach sore) deljuol - fear (body stand on end) kibaji (gocho) - fearful anxiety (diaphragm beating) piny taro - amazement (world mesmerize) paro ang 'e - regret (think I wish I had known) piny chamo - mesmerize (world eat) chuny rach - lugubriousness (heart bad) chuny lit - emotional pain (heart hurt) chuny ler - cleanheartedness chuny teko - strong heatedness chuny tin - short temperedness (heart small) chuny thuth - deep heart (heart deep) chuny liet - hot heatedness, impetuousnecy. The first thing to be observed in this vocabulary is that, perhaps like many other aspects of language, it is not always easy or possible to find straightforward equivalents of the Dholuo words or expressions in English. Without detailed comparative study it might be difficult to determine whether the feelings as named are universal, or whether some of their meanings or equivalents emanate from the culture or world view of the specific language community. So, even where we have given English equivalents, some translation will be better equivalents than others. Perhaps more significantly, having to start research into such an aspect of Dholuo from English creates both conceptual and methodological problems (also see Wierzbicka 1995). Secondly, and to illustrate the point just made, talking about these as emotional lexical items presupposes that there is a semantic field of emotions in which Dholuo has names for the emotions. However, what is interesting for Dholuo from this point of view is that there does not seem to be a cover term that would be the equivalent of the English word "emotion", seated in human cognition as opposed to "reason" as in the dictionary definitions in this paper. The closest one could come to the generalization of "emotion" is in items such as sasia, sira and mima. Sasia describes a situation in which two or more parties are emotionally destabilized to the extent that they do not synchronize. This is traditionally associated with someone else deliberatly causing it to a family, a village, or a close pair or group of people (cf. Ochola Ayayo 1976:159). Sira seems to refer to emotional violence or violent emotions. It often occurs in utterance such as (16):

8 (16) Onyango rasira. 'Onyango's emotions (anger) are severe.' This would be used to describe persons who, for example do not get angry often, but when they do, the anger is deep and violent. Mima is used to refer to the feeling or behaviour that makes one be seen as emotionally delicate - associated for example with sulking until people achieve what they desire. None of these however can even function in any way as a cover term equivalent of the word "emotions". Native speaker competence seems to corroborate this observation: there does not seem to be any conception that nyiego 'jealousy', hera 'love', and wich kuot 'shame' have something fundamental in common. Rottland (personal communication) seems to be right in suggesting that, like snow to the Eskimos, the absence of a cover term for "emotion" in Dholuo suggests that the emotions are in themselves very close to the nature and daily lives of the people. In a society that can be described as meritocratic (see Omondi 1995), these emotions seem to be significant individually in the assessment of the person who will be respected for showing some of them and despised for others. Ocholla Ayayo (1967: 54) would seem to confirm this as he says of some concepts of emotion in Luo "These concepts are central to the ethic of virtue". Approaching the study from English we face the problems and danger that these lexical terms (at least some of them) may not name emotions, and even if they named emotions they may not naturally constitue a semantic field as in English, which we need to assume in order to proceed. Further, within the semantic field, into which these items occur, as it is to be expected, the lexical items enter the usual semantic relationships from which they delineate their meaning. Hence, for example, luoro is partially synonymous with ndenga, and both are antonymous to chir and dhil; gombo is a general term for "desire", which covers the basic meaning in hawanya, maof and muluma, except that these three are specialized desires. Hawanya is desire basically or perhaps originally of another family's food. A child who has hawanya will have a tendency to be around the house where attractive food is being prepared to make sure it partakes of it. Maof is the feeling of desiring to see relatives and friends that have not been seen for too long and by extension transferred to other things. Muluma is desire for food, usually associated with preference for better relishes than vegetables. Some of the lexical relationships reflect the grading of the emotions: mrima and sira both can mean "anger", but sira is the stronger one of the two; sunga and nyadhi are virtually some form of being proud, but nyadhi is positive while sunga has negative connotations. These relationships are rather detaled and support the cultural significance hypothesis. Thirdly, a significant aspect of the meaning of many of these lexical items is that they relate to certain behaviour so much that from the physical or mental collocation it becomes difficult to say whether the term names the emotion or the actions or behaviour that the emotions probably predispose people to. For instance, is ng'uono as it denotes the feeling of

9 kindness different from ng'uono as it means generosity or the tendency on the part of a person to give of what they have easily and not begrudgingly. Characteristically and perhaps more concretely, these feelings are associated with personality traits which in the language is reflected in nominal derivations. Ng'uono may be a feeling, even a momentary feeling. Similarly, nyiego may be a deep momentary feeling. However, both can be associated with personalities such that a person can be identified as one who is prone to ng'uono or nyiego. Such a person is understood to characteristically show ng'uono or nyiego. Grammatically there are two prefixes for the nominalization from these words to name such a person. These arej'a and ra. Interestingly, the words in the vocabulary fall into three categories with respect to these prefixes: those which can take only ja (17a); those which can take only ra, and those which can occur with either ja or ra (17c). Thus we get the following possibilities as in (17b): (17) a Jang'uono *rang'uono b *jandenga - randenga Jamor *ramor *jasira - rasira Jaluoro *raluoro c jamrima - ramrima Jahondho rahondho ?jakibaji - rakibaji Jachir *rachir *jadhil *radhil ?jambawasi - rambawasi jahera *rahera jasunge *rasunga Ja and ra are themselves prefixes which have the meaning, in these forms, of "a person who is associated with", which explains why Stafford (1967) describes them both as "prefix denoting an agent". Even though their meaning and use overlap, further study would indicate that the prefixes really have different functions. Ja here associates the person so named with the action or thing to which it is prefixed. Sojaluoro is one who is fearful, in that he constantly experiences fear like jakom (chairman) is one who takes or sits on the chair. Ra tends to mean one who possesses, or one with the attribute, most commonly used with imperfections of the human body. So randenga is one with ndenga in a way that rakuon 'hunchback' is one with a hunchback (kuom). Both prefixes are obviously ramifications of lexicalization and grammaticalization processes. The facts of occurrence of these prefixes with the words for emotions here raises interesting issues for the understanding of both the language and how joluo perceive the emotions: Is there a rational basis for the distribution of the prefixes? Are the facts telling us something fundamental about the emotions so named? Why should we not say *rahera as we say randenga, or *jandenga as we say jahera! Does the linguistic difference reflecting the perception of these emotions, or is it superfluous? Perhaps the emotions suffixed by ra are perceived as more innate, and may be more part of the constitution of the individual than those that can take ja, and those that can take both are ambiguous in this respect. Whatever the truth, the facts in the data in (17) may be useful in helping to understand the semantics of the language in (15)

10 The use of these prefixes permeates the language and needs a detailed analysis for bringing the necessary light in specific aspects of the language. Nevertheless, that they occur commonly with the emotional words designating people as prone to specific emotions or somehow being associated with the emotions in this way has the added significance in that it semms to support the thesis that emotions are particularly close to central aspects of Luo life, especially in the cultural preception and evaluation of the individual. Fourthly, the data shows that Dholuo has a rather widespread tendency to associate emotions metonymically with body parts and some feeling or sensation therein. This association would seem to be part of a larger process of what we might call concretization which, as it were, defines the internal feeling in terms of a more accessible experience. For example, luoro in the sense of "fear" as an emotion is synonymous with the expression del juol which describes a physical experience when confronted by a frightening thing; kibaji goya 'kibaji is beating me' is used to describe anxiety, the phrase meaning "I am anxious", but also describing a specific physical sensation in a specific bodily location. In the same way, piny ochama, which literally means "the earth/world has eaten me", is used to mean I am experiencing a specific emotion which may be the sort of feeling a lone person, perhaps a child in a strange place would feel as the sun begins to set and darkness surely comes. Clearly these phrases come to describe emotions and are often used as synonyms of the words even though they also describe the more concrete experience in simple physical terms. In the lexicon above, we therefore have three possibilities: (a) words without phrasal synonyms (b) phrases without lexical (word) synonyms (c) words with phrasal synonyms Yiem for instance does not seem to have a phrasal synonym or a concretized equivalent. Wich kuot is an example of a phrase with no word synonym. Most of the words, however, do have phrasal equivalents. Here, there seems to be a cline: there are words and phrases which are intimately related linguistically in their expression of the relevant emotion to the extent that the phrases are virtually nominalizations, and there are, at the other extreme, words which can be paraphrased by some more concretizing phrase but that paraphrase remains loose and remains a description of the emotion or even the associated sensation. What all these observations show is that there is a relationship between the emotions with some biological sensation or some culturally or environmentally defined experience that is finally reflected in this language of emotions. The direction of that relationship or influence is an interesting question: do we start with the sensations with their verbal descriptions, then find the names for emotions, or is it vice versa? Whatever the direction, the data shows evidence of grammaticalization or lexicalization whereby the description of a sensation or an experience becomes a lexical item denoting an emotion. In between the lexicalization at one end, and the sheer descriptive association at the other, there are interesting degrees of relationships that would require complete study in itself. In this category, there are

11 expressions that still stand out as metaphorical expressions of emotions in Dholuo, but that cannot yet be listed as the phrases above. An expression such as (18) is such a typical example characteristic of Dholuo. (18) Otieno piere rego odi. Otieno his bottom is grinding simsim butter. 'Otieno is terribly apprehensive.' It might be pointed out that some of the expressions or phrases listed above have not yet been lexicalized to the extent that they have a citation form. Hence, whereas ichwang' is a normal lexical item for anger that a dictionary of Dholuo would need to list normally, del juol forms a proper citation phrase, but would not yet be regarded as an item to be entered; piny taro on the other hand even sounds wrong in citation, although its use is common and acceptable in sentences or utterances such as (19) (19) Nyo ro piny otara nono. Yesterday the earth/world……………..me (?) 'I was absolutely mesmerised yesterday.'

2.3 Cognitive Basis for Emotions Further, the emotional lexicon in (15) seems to show that chuny is particularly associated with emotions. This is corroborated by the limitless expressions that can define the emotions freely in terms of chuny rack, chuny her etc., and other references in the language that are not yet lexicali/ed. For example "to be peaceful" is expressed as in (20): (20) Chuny obed gi kwe 'Your heart be with peace.' What chuny really means is difficult to say. It might, and in some cases means "the spirit", as opposed to the body (del or ringrwok). Biologically, however, chuny is "liver" where there is gall bladder with bile (kedhno). Given the possibilities of (21 and 22), (21) Oloo chunye rach 'Oloo his chuny is bad.' (22) Oloo keth iye rach. 'Oloo the bile of his stomach is bad.' which can sometimes be used synonymously, it is difficult to determine that chuny in these expressions does not mean "liver". To complicate the issue further, sometimes chuny appears to mean "heart", and the influence of English expressions such as heavy heart does not help to give clarity. For Dholuo, for instance, it is not clear in (23) whether chuny refers to the heart, paraphrasable by (24) or to some other part of the body. Yet in a situation where life is threatened, (23) and (24) can be paraphrases of each other:

12 (23) Awiti chuny e pod gudo. 'Awiti his heart is still beating gently.' (24) Awiti adundone pod gocho. 'Awiti his heart is still beating.' Without going into further biologically detail, it does not make it any clearer that there is a part of the body refer to as dho chuny 'the mouth of chuny' which happens to be the soft spot at which the ribs begin or end in the front between the breasts. Gudo in (23) above refers to soft movements of this part showing presence of pulse, and the verb defines only this action that is closely associated with final moments of life. In the Luo conceptualization of the emotional lexcicon, there is a clear lexical distinction as in (25): (25) Chuny - 'liver' Chuny - 'spiritual heart' Adundo - 'biological heart' For the Joluo, chuny "the spiritual heart" is not an abstract concept, but a physical part of the body to the extent that every Dholuo speaker can point at their chuny with this meaning though they may not know where their liver is. It is the seat of what Ochallo-Ayayo (1967:57) calls "ethical emotions". He summarizes it when he says "...chuny, according to the Luo, is the site of the intellect and ethical emotions and wisdom of a person. They consider emotions or attitudes, evil thoughts, pure feeling, wisdom, hospitality and generousity as invoked from chuny." Although it is certain that the chuny 'spiritual heart' is a biological part of the body, what it is has not been determined. There are even medical (physical) conditions which are described as falling of chuny that can be treated for it to rise. One possibility is that this has to do with the thymus gland. Sixthly, like the rest of the language, this lexicon shows aspects of language interaction in loan words that denote emotions. Wasiwasi and oruma 'sympathy' are Dholuo words now but they are originally Kiswahili words for the same feelings. From English is the word heto meaning "to hate" used as in (26) (26) Onyango oheto Otieno. 'Onyango hates Otieno.' Within the emotional vocabulary, this word stands out as a verb without the relevant noun that would denote "hate" as an emotion. But it is very commonly used to mean or describe the feeling of hate. The gap that exists in the language is that there is no word for "hate" as an emotion. Even the equivalents such as are listed in the vocabularies of Dholuo such as Stafford (1962:161) do not really mean "hate" as understood in English. Stafford gives kwiny kod, jok kod, sin kod as possibilities but they do not capture the meaning of heto. The apparent gap would explain the borrowing from English as motivated by needfilling. But it

13 would not explain why the gap was there originally or why the gap still remains in the nominalization. The main apparent gap would seem to support the assumption already made in this paper that the word is borrowed from English. Rottland (personal communication), however, suggests heto may be coincidentally similar to English hate. Within macro Dholuo, paralanguage plays a significant part in the expression of emotions. The vocal paralanguage here ranges from single consonantal puffs of sounds to verbal expressions reminiscent of words. For example, anger and disgust is expressed by a voiceless implosive palatal click named in the verbal language as ndakruok; the feeling expressible in English by "oh dear" is expressed in Dholuo by an implosive voiceless c and the same sound repeated expresses wonder, called wuoro in Dholuo. Similarly, the sound /gha/ repeated over and over expresses a strong reaction of regret for instance at the hearing of bad news. An explosive nasalized glottal stop expresses helplessness in a situation where in English one might be asking "Now what next?". At the other end of the range are the more wordlike forms that express emotions. Examples of these are given in (27). (27) choke uwi jowa wooowe po yawa. These sounds express emotions directly without the intervention of other meaning (cf. Leech 1974:18). They are the best at expressing the inexpressible as it were. They are, however, much like the verbal language already discussed subject to manipulation with the suprasegmentals for the expression of specific feelings in specific contexts. When the emotion is being communicated to another person, for instance, choke can be germinated as already discussed, expressing anger or disapproval either harshly or gently as the occasion demands. The same can be done with jowa, po, and yawa. Some of the expressions in this category might even have other meaning: yawa might be synchronically or diachronically be translated as "our people", even though it functions commonly as an expression of emotion. The other examples in (27) such as uwi and woowe are more direct in their expression of emotion than the others: uwi, then functions as a cry emitting signals that express pain which could be emotional or physical; woowe is expression of wonder or awe, direct as it is experienced. Besides the vocal paralanguage, there are the gestures sometimes called kinesics. The face and its muscles play a big part in the linguistic expression of many emotions. A stern look with the proper moves of the eyes or the head is often enough for a parent to tell a child in company that she is angry. Opening or closing of the eye or eyes has its message. For instance, the closing of an eye is often associated with a romantic appreciation. A continuous slow shake of the head is an expression of deep sad feeling, etc. The hands and

14 fingures come in handy for the gestures too. A pointing index fingure, shaken in a certain way really says "I am so angry with you, you will see me". Perhaps like all languages, Dholuo has some ready-made expressions that express deep feelings uttered in specific contexts. An expression such as (28), besides the conceptual value, has a deep expression of fundamental feeling. The emotion expressed would vary, but when a person uses the expression, it is like words cannot describe the experience. (28) Wuoth eka ine. 'Travel and then you see.' (29) Koth mochwe ochok. 'Rain which has fallen and has stopped.' Whereas (28) might have some conceptual meaning, (29) functions basically metaphorically giving the philosophical expression of the bottom line of an emotional experience - any emotional experience. The height of linguistic expression of emotions in Dholuo would seem to be what we call artistic. The art form brings together poetry, music and dance. In traditional Luo society, for instance, a young man or woman in love would ultimately express it in outstanding song. Such song may be composed by the lover or the harpist who would normally be in attendance at the courtship sessions of the youth of the village. At such courtships, called chode, the lovers would dance together to the praise tunes they elicited from the harpist or each other. Similarly, wedding or marriage occasions used the same medium. For sadness, the ultimate of which may be a funeral of a loved one, the waitings and other expression of emotions traditionally culminated in various artistic expressions, too. A widow would wail, cry and do all sorts of things. At some point, she reversed into organized painfully beautiful dirges in lament or praise of her beloved one that would set others crying when she had cried enough. Sometimes a couple of friends would do the same in mourning with song and dance in pairs in a mode called nyono. Some who were touched by the loss expressed themselves in poetic pronunciations and shouts, often with the appropriate movements in an art form known as sigweya. Like the rest of the language, these forms are available to the native speakers as part of their competence. Not everybody would all the time use them to express sincere emotions, but they even as art forms denote specific emotions to the extent that if in modem times an artist composes a tune in the genre of a dirge, he would still convey the information to those who know that he is lamenting. The use of art forms in the expression of the deepest or purest of emotions is best obviated in Luo oral literature. A typical example is the story of Obong'o and Apoko the daughter of Migumba. Migumba, an old barren but kind woman somehow acquires a couple of children whom she secretly brings up. When Apoko the mature girl of perfect beauty steals out, she is fatefully sighted by Obong'o, the only beloved child of his parents, who is mesmerized by the beauty and instantly falls in love. Apoko runs back into hiding; Obong'o reports home about his new found object of his ultimate love. Nobody believes him. And

15 nobody is going out of their way to help him get Apoko for a wife. So he goes off on a hunger strike, climbs a tree on which he is going to stay until Apoko herself calls him down. He indeed holds on until this happens. The point for us is that all the critical points and negotiations with Obong'o is done in song. Obong'o's song is simple: Adwaro Apoko ka Migumba….. 'I want Apoko of Migumba……' His brother, parents, favorite aunties, etc. come to persuade him to give up and come down. They do this in song, offering him all sorts of alternatives in material things, but his answer is the same until Apoko herself comes and, coyly begins to sing to Obong'o when he climbs down before she has sung the whole tune, takes her to live happily thereafter. A similar example is in the story Kwach in Malo (undated:15-17) where when women went to fetch water, one of them was caught by a leopard, while the others ran away. Fortunately, the leopard let go the woman. She then walked home bleeding and crying. Malo then goes on: To dhakono yuoche neohere ahinya, mit ka nochopo ka oyuak, yuore ma nokwongo nene nogweyo mana osiepne ka wacho ni, "Onyango wuod kokech ni kanye, Onyango wuod kokech ni kanye! " To Onyango en ng'at majamrima a ninya ka nowinjo sigweyano, en bende nochako gweyo kowacho, "Ee wuowi gi michamo e mari to gi modong kiki igeeen, Fee wuowi gi michamo e mari to gi modong' kiki igeeen". .... "Opiyo Nyaroya ni kanye, Opiyo nyaroya ni kanye?" To bang'e matin jariyogo nochako sow ka giwer; githi kuma a kwach ogwaroye yuorgi." This translates as follows: 'And the woman, her brothers in law loved her very much, so when she arrived crying, her first brother in law to see her nogweyo his friend saying that "Onyango son of the Kokech is where, Onyango son of the Kokech is where!" And Onyango was a person who was a jamrima very much so when he heard that sigweyo he also began to gweyo, saying "Yes young man what you eat is all that is yours, never count on what remains, Yes young man what you eat is all that is yours, never count on what remains".... Opiyo the calf is where, Opiyo the calf is where?" In a little while those two started running to rhythm while singing going towards where the leopard had scratched their sister-in-law.'

16 3. Conclusion This paper has given only a general survey of Dholuo emotional language, which has been defined really as the Dholuo associated with emotions as expressed or named. Understanding language in its wider macro-sense, the survey has shown that whereas there are specific language forms that name and express emotions in Dholuo, the language has interesting facilities for lacing every verbal utterance of Dholuo with the emotions of the speaker. We suggest that ordinary micro Dholuo are potentially if not actually marked with respect to the emotional state of the speaker. The strategies for expressing emotions with this language include suprasegmentals as understood in the linguistic establishment such as stress, and quantity in voice and the degree of loudness. The speed with which an utterance is made and therefore the time taken to utter its syllables will express one or other of the emotions. More segmentally, Dholuo has more peculiar strategies for expressing emotions with ordinary verbal language such as lengthening or germinating the vowels in specific words in the utterance. We have found that there is Dholuo emotional lexicon made of the words and phrases that name the emotions within micro Dholuo; and beyond that there are vocal and kinesic signs that belong to that lexicon. Finally there are the metaphors and artistic language for the expression of emotions in Dholuo. Perhaps this taxonomy could provide a framework for discovering the emotional language in other languages. The purpose has been to raise more questions than can be answered in a paper like this: The very definition of emotions is less than categorical. The Dholuo language of emotion raises issues of the relationships between reason, feeling and human biology that makes it difficult to crystally understand what a common word for an everyday emotion really means. There is a rather productive relationship between the emotions and related sensations, and from the language, as well as intuition, the two are perceived virtually as two sides of the same coin of an emotion. Luoro 'fear' and deljuol 'body standing on end' are two ways of perceiving and so talking about the same feeling. To the extent that when a lion appears, the body reacts deljuol as luoro is felt, luoro seems to be .equated with that sensation, or seems to be dependent on it. Either way, there is a physical as well as a cognitive basis for the particular emotion, and the dictionary understanding of emotions is significantly contradicted. We either have to say that luoro is not an emotion, or emotions are not necessarily distinctly separate from cognition and physical experience. From the language, Luo perception of emotions would seem to suggest the latter. Further, Dholuo emotional language indicates that emotions are about values, evaluations and judgements of human persons and personalities, which ties up closely with the people's ethics. Whatever the emotions or their definitions, there are linguistic facilities for expressing them in Dholuo. Ironically, linguistic establishment has tended to define the most obvious emotional language as not being properly or really language. The so-called interjections and language, the paralanguage in Dholuo can very well be treated like any other part of Dholuo, even with the position that they have conceptual meaning or content,

17 which is the emotion they express. The survey of Dholuo emotional language clearly supports the position that linguists need to re-define their research object and more boldly look at language as it is -the medium of communication and expression, of which sentences and words that make it up are only a part. Chet Creider (1978) talking about Intonation, groups and Body motion in Luo Conversation puts the point very clearly: "...language, as an entity consisting solely of grammar, is not well-defined,...." Dholuo recognizes and even has names for both the vocal and non vocal paralanguage that names emotions, and thus integrates them all as signs and symbols in one language. Finally, this survey of Dhoulo emotional language obviates the dangers of approaching such a study through English. We have not only had to proceed to look for one semantic field in a language that might not have a given concept from the point of view of another; we have risked including lexical items in this study that may not even be emotional language except in as far as they translate English emotional words. Hera, which is the Dholuo word that means love (noun) from the verb hero 'to love' is not an emotion concept in Dholuo for instance. The word, however, is a reasonable equivalent of love as demonstrated in (30-33) The concept is expressable in terms of chuny as in examples (32) and (33) Sometimes the same relationship is expressed in terms of "blood agreeing" as in (34) which can paraphrase (33). (30) Onyango ohero chiege. 'Onyango loves his wife.' (31) Oloo gi Aloo oherore. 'Oloo and Aloo love each other.' (32) Atieno ema chuny Onyango o hero. 'Atieno is the one whose heart Onyango loves.' (33) Atieno ema chuny Onyango oyiego. 'Atieno is the one whose heart of Onyango agrees with.' (34) Onyango rembe ominjore gi Atieno. 'Onyango his blood agrees with Atieno.' But what is depicted in these examples is not an emotion as defined by dictionaries at the beginning of this paper. From other expressions in the language, hera (love) does not catch one or overwhelm, like luoro (fear) can, so that (35) is possible but not (36). (35) Luoro omaka/ohinge. 'Fear has caught/overwhelmed me.' (36) *Hera omaka/ohinga. 'Love has caught/overwhelmed me.' Whereas in English where love is emotion and you get expressions like 'falling in love', 'being head over heels in love', Toeing blinded by love', 'falling out of love', Dholuo HERA

18 does nothing like these. What the concept of "hera" in Dholuo is, and how it compares with English love constitute an interesting but different investigation. Suffice it to make the point here that the methodological approach to lexical studies through English, even though there usually is an area of overlap in the two languages, has its dangers of controlling the perception of the data as it really is. The experience writing this paper suggests that there should be another inroad into lexical studies. All this also indicates that some of the proclaimed universal need to be constantly and experientially revised.

19 References Anonymous (1935), Dholuo Grammar with useful phrases and vocabularies. Mill Hill, London N.W.: St. Joseph's Society, The Kisumu Stores. Creider, Chet A. (1978), "Intonation, Tonegroups and Body Motio in Luo Conversation". Anthropological Linguistics 20, 7: 327-339. Greenberg, Joseph (1970), The . Bloomington. Indiana University Press. Hayakawa, S.I. (1939). Language In Thought and Action.. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Publishers. New York. Kempson, Ruth (1977), Semantic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leech, Geoffrey (1974), Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Malo, Shadrack (undated), Sigend Luo Maduogo Chuny. Kisumu: Lake Publishers and Enterprises. Ocholla-Ayayo A.B.C. (1976), Traditional Ideology and Ethics among the Southern Luo. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1979), Paralinguistics: A Survey of Non-Verbal Communication with particular Reference to Zambia and Kenya. Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa. 4.1: 19-41. Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1982), The Major Syntactic Structures of Dholuo. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1995), Dholuo and The Linguist. Unpublished paper presented at the Conference on the History of Africa Studies, University of Leipzig. March 1st - 4th 1995. Tucker, Archibald N. (1994), A Grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo). ed. by C.A. Creider. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Wierzbicka, A. (1972), Semantic Primitives. Frankfurt/M.: Athenäum Verlag. Wierzbicka, A. (1995), "The relevance of language to the study of emotions", to appear in Psychological Inquiry: Ms. distributed at the Symposium on Language of Emotions of the University of Duisburg, 10-11 April 1995. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English The Chambers English Dictionary. The Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary of Current English. Stafford (1967)

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