Tuesday, February 14 Word Collection—Day 2 (1973 words)

Reporting the results from Day 2

We are still finding it difficult to get Gusiilaay speakers to come and participate in the workshop as Language Experts. (These are the 15 or so individuals who are not required to attend the training sessions that we held last week. Their role is to sit in on one of the word-collection groups and think of words that have to do with the topic that is in focus at the moment.) I can’t remember experiencing this same problem in any of the previous workshops I’ve facilitated.

A word-collection group at work

Because of the lack of these people to fill out the word-collection groups to at least four individuals per group, we’ve had to ask those who were trained as Glossers and Typists to participate in the groups so that we could form a greater number of groups. Even so, we haven’t been able to organize more than five groups either day yet. This is rather frustrating for David and Ibrahima, because we really need six groups in order to get through all of the 1792 topics in two weeks. So they’ve put their heads together to attempt to devise a strategy for getting more people to join our efforts tomorrow and the days that will follow.

At this point, it seems unlikely that we will be able to get through all of the semantic domains during the time allotted. Nevertheless, we will strive to complete as many as possible. And I will continue to look for ways to encourage those who are in attendance, so that they will not give up or become discouraged by progress that is slower than we had hoped for. On a more positive note, it is still very possible—likely, even—that we will reach our goal of 10,000 words, in spite of having only five word-collection groups instead of the recommended six.