Bush Existentialism

Language is the manifestation of a culture. Everyone has heard that language is 'alive', 'growing', or 'adapting' - an entity that is dynamic and evolving with the years. George Orwell understood this and made it a central theme in "1984" - ingsoc, doublethink and newspeak were invented to reduce the language to concise, specific words, limiting the ability to think about abstract concepts by erasing the means to express them. To find what a people hold dear, simply look at their most important adages or, maybe even more importantly, their most important curses. We've all heard how Inuits have '(insert-number-here)' words for 'snow' and then again just as many for 'ice'. When their lives depend on knowing the exact state of their environment, these are not just vital words, but extensions of their awareness they depend on for survival. For all of us coming from the Western world, its a bit harder to come up with ethno-centric terms, but they are there. I have searched through every other romance language plus Arabic and a few African tongues, and there is no direct translation for 'jilting'. Now what does it say about us as a people when we have a word for leaving someone at the altar when no one else does? Arabic has over 600 words for both 'sword' and 'god'. The Dutch have 'zwafflen', which I will not translate for the public, but, believe me, is absolutely side splitting and 'gezellig', the feeling of 'pigs in a pen' - cozy. The land of windmills and legal prostitution lacks, oddly enough, a word for 'sibling'. Portuguese, by far the winner of sexiest language on the face of the planet, has so many sex-based words I wish I had been born Brazilian - one of striking sweetness - 'Cafuné' - to run your hands tenderly through someones hair - and another of a special longing for something real or imagined - 'Saudade', a word that permeates the lives of Cape Verdeans. Think of the stolen words - 'siesta' and 'deja vu' - we know what they mean, but they both must be explained - a mid-day nap, for the Spaniards, and the feeling of having already lived through something, from the French. The Frenchies bring many fun ones to the table - 'tutoyer' - to eye someone scornfully, or (and this one is true for many countries) 'beeper' - to call someone and let it ring once then hang up so they call you back. Just to let you know, I LOATHE it when people beep me. HATE IT.

So where am I leading you this time around? We're going to jump over to Ewe, the local language here in the south that stretches from Benin to Ghana. Ewe, like many indigenous languages has a few quirks about it that we westerners find odd - there are no verb conjugations and only a few proper tenses - in Ewe you can eat something (present and past at the same time) - "me du nu", you can be eating something (present progressive) - "me le du nu", and, by using 'to go' to bridge the gap - I am going to eat - "me dza du nu". Now, if you've been following what I've been laying out for you here the past few months, you'll remember how the perception of time here is stretched quite far here - I'm guessing that is, in a large part, because of the constructs of the language. I'm over-simplifying when I say this (though not by much), but the common ways of expressing time are summed up in two words in Ewe - 'today' (egbe) and 'not today' (Etso) - meaning both 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'. Now, of course, there are ways to express long periods of time, but it is important to point out that the most fundamental and common units of time are 'today' and 'everything else'. Think about that - In a place where there are only two seasons - dry and wet, one temperature and a lack of time-telling constructs in the language, how are we to bring about lasting change? Words like long-term become laughable when people focus only on eating today and leaving everything else until etso. How do you convince a horny 20 year old to choose between buying food or condoms, when hunger is real and now and AIDS is something that could kill you etso? How do you change long-held beliefs on the treatment of women and children, growing crops, or saving money when this is way things have always been done and you are just a happy-go-lucky baby-huggin yovo who is here egbe and gone etso?

I don't know, folks, I really don't know. There is, however, no word for 'boredom' in Ewe, nor is there much of a distinct difference between 'work' and 'living'. On top of that, there are lots of words for 'happy'. Maybe that should tell us something...