But what if I told you that, according to the Enga language, we only have two senses: sight and what I would call non-visual sensing? You see in Enga there are only two sensory words: kandenge (“seeing”) and singi (“non-visual sensing”). The word kandenge is used for anything that is seen or perceived through sight, and the word singi is used for anything that is sensed non-visually. What a difference, to go from five senses to two! You might ask, “If the Enga language has only two sensory words, how do Enga speakers differentiate between actions such as hearing, smelling, and tasting?” The answer is that they do so through context. For example, Engans would say “He sensed the words that I said,” or, “He sensed a bad odor,” or, “He ate and sensed the food.” In each case, the context makes the specific mode of sensing clear.
 |
| The five senses from the perspective of an English speaker |
I always find it fascinating to discover how different languages categorize things in different ways. English speakers categorize senses based on the part of the body that is involved with the sense: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and hands. But Engans categorize senses based on whether or not sight is involved; apart from the eyes, it doesn’t matter what part of the body is involved in the act of sensing. While that seems incredibly odd to us, we find that in English we do not have words for senses that do not involve specific body parts. For example, think of the story of the woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years (Mark 5:25-35). This woman went up to Jesus in a crowd and touched his garment, and immediately her flow of blood dried up. And in verse 29 it says, “and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” So which of the five senses did she use to come to the conclusion that she had been healed? Well, none of them! She didn’t see anything, or hear anything, or smell anything, or taste anything, or touch anything that led her to the conclusion that she had been healed. She just felt it. Now in English, because there is no specific body part associated with the sense of feeling, we don’t consider feeling to be a sense, but it undoubtedly is one.
The same could be said of the feeling of being sick or the feeling of being sad. When a person says, “I feel sick,” or, “I feel sad,” he or she is not coming to that conclusion based on sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. Rather it is an inner feeling that is not associated with any of those senses. And even if you took all of those senses, the person would still know that he or she felt sick or felt sad.
We could describe yet another sense that is sometimes referred to as the “sixth sense.” The “sixth sense” (actually seventh, if we consider “feeling” to be a sense) is defined as “a keen intuitive power.” The “sixth sense” is a way that we perceive the world around us that cannot be associated specifically with any body part and cannot even be associated with an inner feeling we have such as the feeling of being sick or being sad, which are easy to recognize. The “sixth sense” is an intangible sense that is hard to define, yet the experience of many is that the “sixth sense” is real. Again English speakers do not consider this to be a sense because there is no specific body part associated with it. But Engans would include both the “feeling” sense and the “sixth sense” under the category of “non-visual sensing.” So the Enga system is more inclusive of all the various senses, while the English system excludes those that are not associated with a specific body part.
It is amazing how our language shapes the way we think and see the world. That is why it is so important for us to translate Scripture into the language that people understand best, so that they can interact with God’s Word in a way that “makes sense” to them.
Return to Papua New Guinea
We have purchased tickets to return to Papua New Guinea on November 15. Based on the advice of a trusted friend, we have booked with Air New Zealand, traveling from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand, and then on to Brisbane, Australia. We will then have a 24-hour layover in Brisbane before traveling on to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea with Air Niugini. From Port Moresby we hope to fly directly to our home in Ukarumpa, but we need permission from the government to quarantine at our home instead of at a government-approved hotel. Please pray that (1) our flight will not be canceled, and (2) that we will receive permission to quarantine at home. Thank you!
