12-23-05 Hermaphroditic Numbers: Learning Hebrew
Hebrew -- learning it -- I have said little about. I play in my head
what I might sound like if my Hebrew errors were in English. I can
only approximate. In Hebrew, each verb has a connecting word following
it before aproper noun; not entirely like English. One word, et, is
not translateable; literally it could mean 'to.' in some contexts.
But I might err in saying, "I want to talk "on" you." Or, "May I ride
to you in your car."
I will try to sort out a few more examples. But now to numbers.
Hebrew numbers are hermaphroditic, or perhaps have gender dysphoria,
or like some primitive life forms, change gender at puberty. First,
Hebrew is a gendered tongue (unlike us simpler-minded English
speakers). therefore, there are female and male numbers. Rather,
whena number is associated with a noun, it takes on the gender of the
noun. Here, already we have a chameleon-like quality of numbers, a
readiness to take on the morphology of whom it is abutting. But,
that's just the beginnig. Feminine words generally end with ah, or et
--- unless they are numbers. Male nubmers generally end with ah; up
until they reach puberty -- eleven. Then male nubmers lose their
ah's, a version of castration realization. But, female numbers, upon
reaching puberty, grow a tail, eh. Perhaps a version of female penis
realization: hit puberty, get a tail.
You up with me so far? Now, in general, when just counting, the quotidian stuff, female numbers are prefered, easier, shorter words (prepubertally, atleast): achat, shta'im,shalosh, arbah, chamesh, shesh, sheva, shemoneh, tesha, eser. Then up pops the new endings, starting with achat esreh. Male numbers sound -- well, a bit awkward prepubertally -- a bit long on the tongue, unwieldy: echad, shna'im, shloshah, arbahah, chamisha, shisha, shivah, shemonah, tishah, and, get this, asarah. Another reason for males to envy females, besides womb envy.
Unclear to me if this is a clear matter of hermaphroditism, or gender
confusion. For the male numbers in puberty still consider themselves
male, even though topographically, so to speak, they have sprouted
rather feminine-sounding addenda. Ibid for the ladies: they seem to
consider themselves female, even after adding a touch of something on
their pudenda. And all this just for numbers.
With words, I have marvelously many ways to make myself
misunderstood. The most parsimonious (a misuse of the word
"parsimonious," when I mean to say, "simplest") is to shuffle a
letter. So, instead of saying hafganah, ("demonstration"), I say
hagfanah (something akin to "wine"-y, although not "whiney, which
would be a more fitting parapraxis for some demonstrations). I can be
much more creative, taking a central letter and like some rotating door, swivel a few letters around it to make a different word: I take the "g" in magdir, ("define") and flip a few letters around it to say, mafgin,
(demonstrate.) That is instead of defining a word, I end up making a
demonstration about it. Imagine the surprise of the listener, who
might picture me about to loft a sign above my head and march
circles around him, perhaps with a word scrawled upon it.
I am known to substitute a letter: For margish, (feel) I simply swipe
the "r" and replace with an "f," creating mafgish, (something like
"meet"); I go from wanting to feel something, to wanting to meet
something. Well, maybe not too far apart conceptually -- problem
arises if the something is a someone in the sentence.
These are but the simple measures I have taken to tailor the
language, to have a "bespoke" Hebrew -- so to speak. I bring my
personal Jeremyn Street "word tailor" along to resize the language to
my fit. I can be much more creative than simply having sleeves or
cuffs done, as above.
I, like some Biblical writer, have been known to stun my listener by
using past tense mixed with future tense, leaving them uncertain
whether I am coming (from the past) or going (to the future): Just
today, I told (siparti) Moshe, my sapar (haircut guy -- saparit, for the lady
ones), who gave me my tisporet, ("do") with his maspara'im
(scissors) -- (Are you getting the drift of the word connections in
my transliteration?) -- that I will leave early this morning from
Ra'anana, and arrived late to Jerusalem. Time travel I just did, in a
word. I can break through the space-time continuum in the other
direction -- into the future -- also verbally: the lecture on dreams I
gave today will go very well. I have many other such variations which
do not defy Einstein physics, I believe.
Now, back to the previous paragraph, if I may travel backwards for
a moment. Roots in Hebrew are wonderful to play with; sometimes
confound. In a 1950's book, I think called, How the Hebrew Language
was Built, or something akin to that, shorashim, roots, sprout in many
directions. For instance, sapar, saparit, tisporet, mispara'im;
makes sense that they share the root, spr, as they have to do with
cutting. But what about the word mispar? How'd that get in there? I
learned that in times before the Egyptians laid papyrus on us, when
numbers needed to be recorded -- like how many sheeves of wheat did
you cut today -- these numbers (misparim), were cut, tispar, into stone.
Walla! (Said with a tone of wonder or discovery, and a slight labial
to the "w," coming from the Arabic. Not too far removed and perhaps a
precurser of voila.) In the book, he takes a word like echad , "one"
(three letters as every root is in Hebrew) and from this gets the
conceptually related words: yachad, together, myuchad, special,
bimyuchad, especially, and a whole series of mono or uni words, such as
chad-goni, monotone. Also, the commonly used word amen (I will
believe, or I believe), shares roots with aoman, (artist -- someone,
who follows Aristotle's dictum to "imitate" reality in a believable
way).
Also, the I make hay of such words, lofting the word in one
direction, such as a chat about "togetherness," then a wind catches me
and sends me into "specialness." Are you still with me?
I will write in future letters about my more sophisticated
malapropisms, syntactical gymnastics of Olympic proportion that would
make Mrs. Malaprop blush. But a few warm-ups. I am known to start
with a masculine noun, then shift gears into a feminine verb,
mismatching, so to speak, verbal chromosomes. I attribute this to the
influence of living in the gender-bending parvenu of San Francisco for
some years; that is, a temporary influence. The plural/singulars of
verbs give me much creative opportunities. I may start with you
singularly, then multiply you within blink of an eye (or slip of a
tongue) with a verb. Like entering some kaleidoscope of selfhood,
you will see yourself multiply-reflected. A verbal Prospero, I can do
this with only one word. I will mis-conbabble kvar, "already," with
adayin, "still": thinking I am saying apologetically, "I still don't
speak Hebrew well," emerges from my lips, "I already don't speak
Hebrew well." In such a slip, I "Q.E.D." myself, should the listener
have any doubt.
> > Well, perhaps enough for now.
> > Sayonara.
Copyright N. Szajnberg 2006
