Dear language-speaking people,
I’m not sure I can say anything super coherent today.
I spent most of the past week counting cans of tuna and rolls of toilet paper in preparation for the apocalypse, calming scared children, and trying to frantically finish a freelance project that would put bread on the table in case we survive the apocalypse long enough to want to keep eating bread. OH MY GOD SO DRAMATIC. We’re ok. Nobody is hurt. We’ll be ok.
There is even some good news. For example, a six-legged gazelle has been spotted in Israel’s south. I’m not even kidding. These are the headlines from last Thursday:
“US said to believe Iranian attack on Israel is imminent: ‘Matter of when, not if’”
“Israel threatens ‘powerful response’ in Iran’s territory if it attacks from own soil”
“Six-legged gazelle born with rare genetic defect spotted in Israel’s south”
Can you blame me for not being too focused on learning languages, or whatever it was that I wanted to accomplish when I started this newsletter? I was too busy thinking about the six-legged gazelle.
On Friday afternoon, my friend Danny and I took our dogs for a walk in a small national park just outside the city. The general feeling everywhere was not of panic but, if anything of a ‘last meal’ — i.e. let’s live our life while we can and eat all the dessert while it lasts… but that’s a normal state for Israelis in times of danger…
That park is usually empty but this time there were many people, mostly families having picnics and celebrating Eid Al-Fitr. The weather was gorgeous and you could feel — you read it in people’s eyes— that we all had the same thoughts running through our heads, even if we thought them in different languages. Those thoughts, were “Oh my god what a beautiful day, we made it up the hill without seeing a single snake — how is it possible that something terrible could happen here soon — on this hill, in this country, on this planet?”
Danny pointed out a flock of birds in the sky, those birds that spent the winter in Israel like they do every year and were now wisely going back to whatever northern country they call home.
By the way, Swahili has the same word for ‘bird’ and ‘plane.’ Ndege. How do you know what is flying at you then? They belong to different noun classes, meaning that their agreement with the adjective or the verb will be different.
The prefix m- is added to adjectives only when they describe animate nouns. That’s why you say ndege mkubwa to mean ‘a big bird’ but ndege kubwa (without the prefix) to say ‘a big plane.’
Maybe ndege can refer to other flying things as well, I don’t know.
Like, for example, flying elephants:
As we were leaving the park, three little girls from a family that was having a picnic nearby ran up to the dogs in that scared-excited way of children who aren’t used to dogs. We asked, do you want to pet them? The girls’ dad translated it for them into Arabic, and they shyly came closer and petted the dogs.
I had successfully forgotten all the Egyptian Arabic I’d learned two weeks ago so I was of no help even if these kids could understand Egyptian Arabic which they probably couldn’t.
"We have baby goats at home," their dad told us, "They're crazy about them."
Then we continued on our way, and the littlest girl stood there and waved bye kalb! bye kalb! and I was so happy that I understood this one word which sounds almost the same as the Hebrew word for ‘dog’ kelev.
I consider it a good start.
Happy that everyone is okay. 💚
I love the title! ( in addition to the essay itself, naturally!)
Remember this drawing of yours🧡