"to teach" -- help request.

[JANET WILSON]

Tzur

In Kuche, a language of northern Nigeria, "to teach" is the same word as "to tell" or a word derived from "to tell."  The simple verb "tell" is 'di' and the derived word is 'disi'.

There are a couple of other words that also mean "tell" and I think the difference is that 'di' is more likely to be used when the thing told is a command.  For instance, the character in a story tells another character, "When he comes, bow down prostrate."  A reference back to this remark says that "It was the (ethnic) man who TOLD him."  In other words, it was the (ethnic) man who told him (i.e. commanded him) to bow down prostrate.  However, both 'di' and the other word for "tell" ('tet') are used to tell information.

The derived word 'disi' is consistently translated "teach".  The derived form is one that I call the "distributed action" aspect. It is very similar to a habitual aspect, but Kuche has both a habitual aspect form and a distributed aspect form; the difference, according to Bybee (1994) is that habitual aspect describes an action repeated on different occasions, while distributed (a specialized subcategory of iterative) aspect describes an action repeated several times on the same occasion.  My language informant describes the difference between "ni'"(to give) and "nisi" (to give one by one).  She says if you give one egg, or even if you give several eggs all at once (like in a basket), you say "ni".  If you give one egg, then pick up another egg and give it, then another egg and give it, you say "nisi."  While I can't imagine a teacher "telling" a student the lesson over and over again all on one occation, I do know that teaching involves a lot of repetition.

Perhaps that's more information than you wanted to your simple question.  Good luck with your inquery.

Janet Wilson

tzur sayag <tzurs at hotmail.com> wrote:


Hello,
I'm not sure this is applicable for this list, I was referred by someone, if this is not the place for such a post, please excuse my ignorance.

Ok, here's the deal,
We're interested in different terms/words that mean "to teach " in as many languages as possible.
The concept of teaching has many other terms in English that have slightly (or not so slightly) different meanings, for example, the following terms all have something to do with
"teach":
Teach
Educate
Instruct
Indoctrinate
Tutor
Explain
Show
Demonstrate
Discipline
Inform
Coach
Edify
Prepare
Inculcate
(three vertical dots)...

If people from different languages can please help us gather information about these terms (along with their meaning which Is what we're actually after), we would be super grateful.

If you care to reply, but do not want to spend an hour over this, please pick one or two words in your language, any bit of information would be mostly appreciated.

I'm not sure I'm clear about how this list works, if the replies go to the list (which I'm now subscribed to) it fine, or if you want to send it directly to my email (tzurs-at-post-ddot-tau--ddot-ac-ddot-il (-at-=@, -ddots-=.) , please do so,

Again, sorry if this is not the correct list, All the best & happy new year, -tzurs