Wednesday, December 18, 2024
OPINION ESSAY - THINKING ABOUT SOUNDS AND LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE
Oddly enough, it was sounds, not actual words, that made me begin to understand that thought itself could influenced by the "language" of the person.
In language school we were told that when a German dropped something, they did not say "oops", but, said "hoopla". It seemed strange to me that they would actually make that sound instead of the "natural", in English, of course, sound of "oops".
The first time I ate in the mess hall (dining facility) at my duty station in Germany, one of the German ladies who worked there dropped some dishes, and, sure enough, laughed and said, "Hoopla".
It was more of a revelation to me about the power of language than anything else I learned studying two languages and living in Europe for six years.
So, just for fun, what kinds of animals say wau-wau, kikeriki, and iaah in German?
Dog (bow wow), rooster (cockadoodle doo), mule or horse (hee haw).
Same animals, sounding different to different ears. Makes me wonder if the thoughts sound different too.
Labels: donovan baldwin, essay, German, hooplah, language, oops, opinion
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
POEMS WRITTEN JANUARY 5, 2020, BY DONOVAN BALDWIN
slightly indecent alone
like sex, best with you
-----
Holding you in the morning
You in your pj's, me in mine
Cloth so soft it might as well be skin
Bodies warm against one another
As intimate as if naked,
More so, perhaps, for we are
Relaxed and even more at ease
THAT way
Than stiffly dressed and proper.
-----
let's share pajamas
i'll wear bottoms you the top
that won't last too long
-----
let us take pleasure
in relaxed intimacy
chastely making love
-----
I set forth to sail upon
Life, an endless polar sea,
Myself my own Titanic,
To fulfill my destiny.
I'm lost within the world
Till I crash some floating mass,
Sinking beneath the waves
Of undulating grass.
The band plays and the mourners,
Perhaps one, two, no more,
Exchange empty pleasantries,
Then return to what they did before.
-----
They didn't speak our language,
Those newly minted, and recruited,
Teachers from another country.
"Up north," we said, strange places,
Like New Jersey,
Alien lands like that.
We understood them,
Though they talked too fast,
But, we to them,
In our 33 RPM voices,
Were often unintelligible to
Their 78 RPM Yankee ears.
-----
Where does dark come from.
Is it truly simply
The absence of light,
Or, is it it's own entity,
With an existence
Independent of beams of energy?
I like to think of dark as
A free creature simply hiding,
Kind enough to allow us
To see things to be
Remembered once it returns.
-----
Old bricks, weathered things,
Skirt the house, pier and beam,
Built the year my mother was born,
The old bricks new when she was too,
Bought in 1949 when she and it,
Both turned 32, and I, 4,
I grew with her, in it, and
Remember those old weathered bricks.
-----
Copyright January 2020 by Donovan Baldwin
Labels: bricks, dark, donovan baldwin, haiku, holding, language, love, pajamas, poem, poems, poet, poetry, polar sea, Titanic
