In 1914 the mission closed and the Anglican brothers left but the language stayed. During these decades of isolation the language developed and evolved from just those five words. We were able to learn as much from a history of the mission written by one of the brothers. Nowadays, the town is connected by the road we arrived on. But very few outsiders visit, and many of the residents had never been out of the village.
The relative ease with which one can master the vocabulary of Tkubbo (five words) compared with, say, French (40,000 words) or English (500,000 words), tends to lull the would-be speaker of Tkubbo into a false sense of accomplishment. When one is learning to speak French, by the time one has learned all 40,000 French words, one generally has picked up most of the grammar and has a fair proficiency in the language. However, there are many pitfalls for the Tkubbo speaker, even for those who have absorbed the entire pentic-lexicography.
After a few weeks we were still having great difficulty with the language.
This we found rather troubling and we were too embarrassed to tell people we were professional linguists. In any case, we never gained sufficient facility in the language to tell them what we did for a living.
One of the subtleties of Tkubbo is a type of lilting intonation that we never mastered. The standard, good natured, greeting is "My, my." By this time we had met pretty much everyone who lived in this village. We were on friendly terms with the clerks at the few stores and had gotten to know the school teacher quite well.
We were treated as harmless imbeciles who couldn't string two sentences together.
One day I was passing the school yard on foot while Benny was again busy with our vehicle. The school teacher is Ngiggi. She was supervising children who were running to and fro. I called out a friendly greeting, "My, my, Ngiggi." She froze and stared at me.
"My, my?" she asked.
"My, my," I replied happily.
She started backing away from me, herding the children behind her. Suddenly, she turned and yelled at them, "My, my!" and pointed at me. They ran away pell-mell, taking up the alarm cry of "My, my!" This seemed to bring people from all over the town. They kept well away from me, inquiring gingerly of Ngiggi, "My, my?"
At her panicked replies of "My, my!" people covered their faces and shrank away. The hubbub had alerted Benny. Seeing me surrounded by a watchful crowd, he came forward cautiously.
The people all cried out the "my, my" warning. Alas, it had no effect on the other idiot newcomer and Benny walked right up to me.
"Have you recently desecrated the village square?" he asked.
"No," I replied.
"Then they must think you have some terrible infectious disease. I must have it too, now."
