Monday, January 14, 2008

Language lessons finally

I'm embarrassed to admit, but after so many years I've finally committed to learning urmese.
Today I learned how to read and write "the fat elder sister dances every night". MAMA WA NYA NYA KA. Easy, right? And I can also say "Really, I'm not lying!" TE GEH MA NYAAR BU! You're probably thinking that these phrases might not be the most practical, but you never know when these might come in handy for me. It's actually a really beautiful language to the ears, one that ranks high up there for me like the Dutch language. And like Korean, you have to memorize the different gender/age titles and conjugate the verbs according to who you are and to whom you are addressing. And although it's difficult to write the letters, I always get a kick out of looking at the words. Each character reminds me of people in different positions because there are a lot of circles and sticks. And then there's the character that...OK imagine a guy naked, lying supine, knees up and you're looking at him from down below, as if you're an ObGyn. Always get a kick out of that one... OK, back to practicing the script and working on some malaria data.

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