Roger U Roundly- Cunning Linguist

One regret I have in life is that I'm not fluent in another language. And it's my own damn fault- I could've knuckled down and gained at least a  working knowledge of German or French or Spanish, all languages I've studied to varying extents in school, but just never got into it at the time. Okay,  all three times. Welll, it was mandatory, and anything(especially at that age)that's Someone Else's Idea you have a built-in resistance towards. So there you go. 

Funny, I'm still like that as far as going along with Someone Else's Idea, to some extent. Some things never change. But as far as foreign language goes, my great regret at not knowing another tongue(yes I know, I could do it now, but..) shows that I have a great love for language. I think language is cool. 

So even though I haven't mastered another tongue(at least not as yet), I have picked up a lot as far as the linguistic landscape. Well, actually a little about a lot. It's truly amazing, if you think about it, how much language you just pick up by your own osmosis, and by how many sources. 

My Mom told me about my coming home from school, from Kindergarten, all of five years old, speaking Spanish, but the earliest foreign language I remember was, believe it or not, Armenian. 

Yes, Armenian. Two phrases: duru paz(open the door); and duru pak(close the damn door). Courtesy of our Dad, who got them from his Armenian roommate from Law School, one Shahen Igian. My brother and I heard duru paz and duru pak constantly growing up(our Dad, God love him, had a tendency to overdo things--a trait which his elder son seems to share at times, unfortunately), and I don't know what became of it in my brother's household, but I think that the duru was pak from there. 

Okay, Armenian. That's one. Coming up as a music student from a young age, since all directions in classical music are written mainly in Italian, I have a few words under my belt- a lot more than I thought I did when I took a look at an Italian Language book. Still, I probably couldn't ask directions based on what I know--but I could ask how fast or slowly something was going. 

From reading Philip Roth(and Lenny Bruce's How to Talk Dirty and Influence People), I've picked up a few Yiddish words. Even a few relatively obscure ones like rachmones, which means compassion; and shaygets, which means disgusting, repulsive. The book Be Here Now yielded a handful of words in Hindi and Sanskrit. As a kid of 17, 18 years old I read Be Here Now so many times that a few of those words are just etched into my brain. Siddhis, which means powers. Sadhana, which means one's spiritual work. Hridyam, one's heart. 

Some years back, there were a couple of unusual films on cable TV's Independent Film Channel, both of them from Copenhagen. I got on a kick for a little while of watching movies from over there, and in the process ended up learning about 100 words(and some phrases)in the Danish language. Many of those words are floating around up there in my noggin as well. I think my favorite Danish word is Endetarmsåbning- pronounced en-de-tahms-OH-bning. It means rectum. I think it's medical. 

They have the same alphabet we do, plus three extra letters: ø(pronounced ur);å(pronounced OH-which we just saw in my favorite dansk ord); and last but not least, æ(pronounced eh). I met a lady from Denmark fairly recently, and tried out some of the dansk sproge(Danish language)I knew- or thought I knew. It came out more German. Actually if I ever found myself over there(and I do have a few musiker venner som kende jeg på Internet--musician friends whom I know from the Internet), I'd limit myself to only three of their words: taler de engelsk. It means, do you speak English? 

Hm, during that same period, I worked with someone who was fairly conversant in Czech, so there's another one. Trying to remember some of the phrases he taught me- will fill in as memory supplies-the only one I can think of right off the bat is kind of appetite-reducing, but it's all I've got, so: kermit ryby. Pronounced ker-mit ree-bee. It means, literally, feed the fish, but refers really to ralphing. Retching. Regurgitating. Okay, that's enough R's. Or any other letter of the alphabet. Whoever's alphabet..  

I don't know how many characters are in the Czech alphabet(yes yes, I could look..)but they do have their own weirdass notations on some of the letters, and- speaking of R's-some strange half-rolled/half-guttural rrr sounds. Czech belongs to(and again, being too lazy to look it up for sure)the Cyrillic group of languages, of which Russian is also a part. All I know about the Russian language, besides da, nyet, and das vidanya, is that they have 33 characters and one of them looks like a sphincter. End of story there. 

As far as Asian languages, a few Korean words from a brief stint in Tae Kwon Do: a martial arts studio(a dojo in Karate)is called a dojang; one's teacher(Sensei in Karate)is Sabonym; the master instructor is Kwanjangnym. Plus a few Japanese words, from spending a very nice week there in October of 1995. 

Kwanjangnym. Is that a cool name or what? Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, courtesy of Charles Schulz. Opu. It's Hawaiian for stomach. (Lotsa cool stuff from Charles Schulz over the years, among my favorites the information about phobias: Hypengyophobia- the fear of responsibility; Ailoraphobia- the fear of cats; Gephyrophobia- the fear of bridges, etc..). 

So that's Armenian, Italian, Yiddish(just a dialect, I know), Hindi, Sanskrit, Danish, Czech, Korean, Japanese and Hawaiian. In addition to the French, German and Spanish I had to take- which, admittedly, I don't remember what I should but am still learning new words in each language. 

And finally, from reading A Clockwork Orange, a few words in Nadsat, the fictional dialect used by Alex and his droogs(friends), who later became millicents(cops)and gave him a good shot to the gulliver(head)and yarbles(cojones). Real horrorshow.

Like I said, it's amazing how much even a totally undisciplined(but inquisitive) slob like me can pick up, as far as that goes. As far as extraterrestial languages(since we've already covered our own globe), I don't know any Klingon, but I do know one word in Remulak, from The Coneheads: slarvak. It means sleep, which I'm sure I'm inducing(at least by now)in the reader. Sweet dreams.