love_your_enemies__learn_their_language epitome of incomprehensibility (maybe a draft of something to read at tomorrow's poetry thing, I don't know) The first time, I didn't mean to: I was raised with English words around me, my mother tongue not my great-great-great-grandmother's tongue. Which I don't mind. Languages have roots and channels that flow under and around family trees. But this stream is mainstream, a rushing river overturning trees. Kimerahau? Mom asks, and I transcribe it like anglicized Japanese. Grown-up, my brother follows the frozen brook to where the trees drip frosting, where the word for snow sounds like "snack." The second time, I can't help it either. Except I think the word "cahier" (Englishly kai-YAY) is a shortened "colorier" (ko-lo-ree-YAY). I grow to hate it when well-meaning restaurant staff give me crayons to "colour" with. I don't just "colour." I draw. I draw and draw and draw, and write a little. The dew has dried and wet and dried the Plains of Abraham thousands of times, but when I write "Ki parlaki tri langatek," I pretend it's not just mixed-up French. Angled phones and frank rankled phones rustle in the trees, but I pretend not to answer. I want to be independent. The third time, I decide. Mid-pandemic, I curse the words in pathogen-related terms, but I'm learning. The course code is GERM, a seed. A plus and then be minus the sin tax. Verbs second, V2 on all cylinders. Historische Sprachwissenschaft, team Sprachbund, we're far far far off the Autobahn. 221105 ... e_o_i to explain a little: -Ciamar a tha thu? (sounds like kimerahau) is the informal "How are you?" in Scottish Gaelic. My nearest ancestors from a different continent are my mother's grandparents from northern Scotland. -Cahier means exercise book or notebook. For a long time I used this word for the plastic folders that held three-holed paper, because I didn't know the English term. When Mom called them "duotangs," that word felt foreign. -Historische Sprachwissenschaft is German for historical linguistics. Linguistics is also translated Linguistik. -Sprachbund = literally, language group. Used to talk about language features that spread over an area regardless of whether the languages they spread to have close "family" relationships. 221105 ... e_o_i NOW it's "a draft of something to read at tomorrow's poetry thing" (Accent_Open_Mic). Except my later version just focuses on the Gaelic phrase and how it got passed on. Also, it's just nine lines long. 230805 what's it to you? who go blather from