Paiwan Every Day 4: qulip // maqulip

I stole today's saying from a classmate kuljelje. 

In our first Paiwan class last Wednesday evening, our teacher kuliw asked students to give a short introduction about themselves in Mandarin. kuljelje said something pretty Paiwan in my point view; he said, "If our culture is going to die, the first thing to go is language." Paiwan are excellent orators. There are jokes about guests starving in a Paiwan wedding banquet because the train of invited speakers easily delays the dinner for hours, and you still listen. 

Today in our second Paiwan class, we did the same self-introduction in Paiwan. kuljelje said the same thing iagain. Only this time, I found it so beautiful that I asked him to repeat, and I asked teacher to write it on the white board and read it for us. 

So, yes, today's recording is also a stolen piece of art, from our teacher kuliw. 

nu uri maqulip tja kakudan, sangasan a maqulip tja kai. 

In English:

If our culture is disappearing, the first to go is our language. 

Glossary: 

1. uri: will or to be going to
2. ma-qulip: disappears. The root of this word is qulip 'erase'; the prefix ma- makes the stative into a verb.
3. ka-kuda-(a)n: custom, way of doing things, culture
4. sangas-an: in the first place. The root is sangas 'first'. 
5. kai: language

Reading: 

The photo is the soup we had this everning after class. You can only have this kind of soup in an indigneous village because these ingredients cannot be found in any market: vuljaw, tjanaq, and puk. 

What a wonderful world!