classifiers.

Learning a new language is difficult.

Karen is admittedly one of the easier languages, so I’m glad we’re starting here. It’s fairly logical and straight forward, which I now see that English is not in the slightest.

Even so, it’s exhausting, and there are times you just want to bail and play the “How about I teach you English instead?” card.

Today in our lesson we discussed classifiers, which is admittedly the most nonsensical aspect of the Karen language that I have discovered to date. I’m not sure if this is common information, but the classifiers work like this, if you translate it to English literally:

I have older sisters, four {insert classifier}.  I will buy pumpkins, two {insert classifier}. I have shoes, one {insert classifier}.

So, you state your object or item, the number, and then the classifier. In the case of sisters, the classifier is for people, because they are people. Easy enough, yeah?

Or an animal: Do you have a cat, one animal?

I can follow this, and it seems simple enough, because there is a category. For the people classifier, you would use this for people: teachers, students, drivers, chefs, businessmen, friends, sisters. For the animals classifier, you would use this for animals: dogs, cats, pigs, horses. Okay. I can follow that.

However, I only knew of three classifiers, and it seemed like there needed to be many more. Unfortunately, the whole concept is really difficult for many Karen to explain, because it comes naturally to them; they don’t know the rules, but what sounds right; and, well, it’s nonsensical. I can completely relate because English is much like this. I don’t know when to use the present participle or past or present perfect, I just know not to say that, but this instead.

Anyway, I broached the subject today. I asked Lavender, “I would like to understand classifiers. I know three: grah, doo, and plu. I understand when to use those. But are there more?”

She said yes, there was one more. She taught me this one, and we tried to identify a category: she gives us a word that uses this classifier, we try to make a connection and guess another word; she tells us if it works or not. This goes on until we can identify a similar theme, or we get too confused or distracted.

As we continued talking, I gathered a list of ten classifiers. And as haphazardly as that came about, I’m certain there are more.

Just to give you a taste, here are the classifiers, and their categories that we came up with:

Please note that it’s too difficult to insert all the Karen here, so I’m just going to sound it out. But if you were here, I’d write it and read for you and you’d be much more impressed.

grah: for people

doo: for animals with four legs that are not slimy

pluh: all things round (balls, corn, cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes) ; things that hold other things (a chair, a basket, a box, a bottle, a bag)

bey: for things you can read (books, magazines); things that swim (fish, boats); things that fly (birds, planes); things you wear (shirts, pants)

boh: for things that slither or are snake-like (snakes, lizards, rope, beans)

kah: “things”; from what we gathered, mostly things that you say in English because there isn’t a Karen word, such as a fan, shelf, etc.

koh: shoes, bicycles, cars; not sure on the connection here

dey: leaves (tree leaves, lettuce, spinach, kale)

paw: flowers; which, this is actually the word for flower, so you would repeat it, “paw {number} paw”

too: trees

Are you royally confused?

That was the point. Really? How can things you read, things that swim, things that fly, and things you wear be in the same category, while trees and leaves each have a category to themselves?

Oh, my. And this is only the first language we’re trying to learn.