Tuesday, 13 May 2014

Schlemiels and Schlimazels

A schlemiel spills soup on a schlimazel.

    What a fantastic sentence! A schlemiel is a Yiddish word meaning a clumsy or awkward person, who is prone to spilling soup. A schlimazel is also a Yiddish word derived from the German word 'slim' meaning crooked, and the Hebrew word 'mazzal' meaning luck, and translates to an unlucky, accident-prone person who is prone to getting soup spilled on him. Hence the sentence 'a schlemiel spills soup on a schlimazel.'
 
   Interesting eh? Yiddish is quite an entertaining language, it has some brilliant words, that sound exactly like what they mean. The onomatopoeia is amazing. To me, some of the words completely sum up what they stand for. Now, I don't speak Yiddish, nor do I know anyone who does, but I would love to learn it one day. I'm a bit of a language nerd. I'm studying French and Irish in school, but the Irish education system still hasn't figured out how to teach languages yet, sadly.
 
   I'm very fond of the Irish language, although not many people can say that. In my estimation about 80% of people learning Irish in school hate it, and nobody can speak it properly these days, apart from the very few Gaelgoirí left in the country. It saddens me really. As an Irish lassie, I'm quite patriotic and proud of my little island, and whatever we have left of our culture, since being invaded by Britain all those years ago, is diminishing to the point where I have to wonder, will there be any left? I believe the Irish language to be very poetic and beautiful, and while most see it as an unnecessary chore to learn it in school, I love it, and hope to learn it fully in college, and to become fluent one day. It's a tricky little language, because it's difficult to put into practice due to the lack of fluent speakers, but I think it's worth it. As the Irish saying goes "tír gan teanga, tír gan anam", meaning a country without a language is a country without a soul.
 
   I'm also learning Japanese at present, on my own, (it's not like I have the option of lessons where I live anyway) and I would love to study that in college too. Finding a career out of language is tricky business though, but I'm sure I'll get by.

I'll be a polyglot yet!

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