Groly To the Lord

Spelling mistake? Well, that's what I would call it. This sign on a minibus I saw this morning is no mere spelling mistake, however. Not only did Glory become Groly but it is also indicative of the wider trend among Zambians that Rs and Ls are often confused in written and spoken English. This is something that I may have mentioned before, but the sign made me think of it again.

The R/L confusion extends to many words: right/light, river/liver, full/four, lay/ray, lake/rake, play/pray. For example, someone might say, "my lake is broken" when they mean "my rake is broken." Or people will talk about the "Zambezi Liver." In my Grade 8 class last term I tried to hit back. We carefully went through how to pronounce the letters and then moved on to some words getting the class, then small groups, and then individuals to try pronouncing the words. The effort was futile so after a few efforts I gave up. I then gave a short reading test where they had to read out sentences like "I turn on the light" but I discovered that much of the class wasn't able to do any reading, let alone differentiate between two letters.

I think that this confusing letter-switch might be a result of local languages. The word "to come" in Nyanja is "bwera" which is pronounced "bwela." I hear that in Tonga there is no "R" but that some Ls are pronounced as Rs. Given these pieces of evidence I think I can conclude fairly safely that this is the root of the confusing situation.

For someone not used to switching Rs and Ls at random (or should that be landom?) this can be confusing. When someone tells you that the play at church it takes a little while to realize that they meant that they pray at church. I'm getting a little quicker at it though now. Who knows, maybe I'll even start doing it too someday.