Smithy Briand at the helm of the yacht Seal. Photo: Karen Earnshaw
After living in the Marshalls off and on for 15 years, the number of Marshallese words and phrases I know and use are pathetically few. ‘Hello’, ‘how are you?’,’ see you tomorrow’ and ‘can I have another glass of white wine’ are about the limit. This is for four reasons: I’m lousy at learning new languages; I’ve spent little time working at it; the language bears little resemblance to anything my ear has ever heard; you can almost always find someone who can understand English. That said, most volunteer teachers who fly off to an outer island come back for the Christmas break four months later fluent in Marshallese (damn it). But, like many cultures, ri-Majol (Marshallese people) love it if you at least try to wrap your mouth around their language, so below are a few words and phrases to get you going. The voice you will hear belongs to former Majuro Hospital employee Smithy Briand, who was happily ‘kidnapped’ from the Marshall Islands by Australian volunteer Virginia and now lives in New South Wales.
An increasing number of patients in RMI are being diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer while the sole colonoscopy system at Majuro hospital has been non-operational for months, impacting the capacity for clinical diagnosis and treatment, reports the Ministry of Health and Human Services. In response to this urgent healthcare need, Taiwan’s Shuang Ho Hospital and Majuro […]
HILARY HOSIA Meet Aguster “Akku” Kabua: the first Marshallese to enroll in the prestigious US Merchant Marine Academy. The maritime trailblazer is the daughter of John Anjojo Kabua and Pamela Duffy and stepdaughter of Mike Sakaio. The 18-year-old was recognized among five others in her graduating class for their acceptance of similar federal scholarships during […]
A naming ceremony for the Marshall Islands cargo sailing ship, SV Juren Ae, was held last week at the ASIA Shipbuilding Company on Geoje Island in South Korea. The Marshallese phrase Juren Ae refers to one of the main paddles of a traditional outrigger canoe. According to a release from GIZ, the German international development […]
GIFF JOHNSON The Marshallese presence in the two Ka’u area schools on the Big Island of Hawaii has risen to 20 percent, largely on the growth of the Enewetak community that lives in Ocean View on the south side of Hawaii Island. But as the Marshallese student population grew in the two Ka’u schools — […]