Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Paiwan Every Day 45: titjen

Today in class we read an article about the original self (ありのままの自分) and the social self (社会的な自己). The author argues we living in a society cannot disregard relationship and role. The social self prevails. 

It makes me wonder how Paiwan consider ‘self’, and I have two cases that show tiamen (first person plural exclusive) and timitja / titjen (first person plural inclusive) are more welcome than tiaken (first person singular):
      Paiwan people will not say ku qinaljan (my village), but nia qinaljan (our village).
      Paiwan people will not say mamazangiljan tiaken (I am the chief), but mamazangiljan [ti]amen (we are from the chief family).

In fact, the only ‘self’ one can find in the dictionary is macidji, meaning alone or by oneself, which has nothing to do with the assertion of individuality. Raleigh Ferrell did not have an entry for ‘individual’ in his Paiwan Dictionary, but there are many words for coming together.

sa titjen a se paiwan nadjemaljun tua 102,931 a caucau.

In English:
And we Paiwan have reached a population of 102,391.

Glossary:
  1. sa: then, conjunction (CONJ)
  2. titjen: we, 1st person plural inclusive nominative (NOM) 
  3. se: of, belonging to
  4. na-dj<em>aljun: to have arrived, actor voice (AV). The root is djaljun 'achieve, reach, arrive'. 
  5. caucau: people
Reading:

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Paiwan Every Day 668: pai

pai, kinemnemanga tiamadju tu kemacu tua ljigim nua kakinan.   Free translation : Now, they decided to take their mother's sewing needle...