language transliterated arabic sounds like medieval poetry morning of blessedness my beloved the word for bread is life it's very flowery when I taught ESL it was hard to explain punctuation it felt robotic to them to stop after every thought arabic sentences don't run on they skip and tumble like gymnasts turned dancers every word is so rich and can be mapped out on family trees with ancient roots and egyptian, with our several histories, pharaonic, coptic, turkish, colonial, american imperialism we took the english word 'over' and now it means too much tmi, being affected, being excessive it can be a verb, avwar it can be a noun avwara when I moved here in 2003 I could barely express a thought and I would cold sweat through each conversation my arabic is still terrible I think I have a complex I grew up being told it was the language of the family of heaven I was made to memorise the quran I don't mean to be a heretic but to me it was a very long 7th century poem and challenging not just in form but in content for a child and my father always weaponized arabness when my mother or his children were less than when I was older my poor arabic was interpreted through a classist lens not a psychological one peppering in french and english is seen as a status symbol I never learned tagalog or bisaya my mother probably had her own emotional reasons for that I took french in school I liked learning in a less loaded space but I didn't feel any love for it now I'm studying korean I was drawn to it before the hallyu or korean wave that is taking over the world it's not my mother or father tongue it's not the language I was educated in and for some reason people took offense to this but for once I felt myself putting up walls there's not going to be any guilt or shame or agenda I love it I love that the letters look like little stick figures I love that ancient linguists were ordered by a king to create them and they based them on the shape and position of the tongue and mouth I love that there's a story about a traveling princess linking korean and tamil I love the sing songy whine I love subject object verb I love saying kkhhhhh for satisfaction I love that there's very formal and formal and casual language You can say the same words but drop the formal endings and it can be deeply insulting or deeply intimate I love it And it's my love that came out of nowhere for no reason |