Dearest Joshua David~Hello little fellow! How are you doing? :-)
Today gigi came to eat lunch with us again. She fed you and changed you and you fell asleep in her arms. :-)
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Daddy doesn't have to work the rest of the week, so we can be all together as a family for the next few days! How exciting!
You were a bit messy today with a few of your feedings, so we changed your clothing this evening. We decided to try you out in one of your "newborn" size outfits. We picked one out that looked a little smaller than the rest to see how you did. You filled it up quite nicely! It's still a little long, but you're definitely growing into it! It won't be long until you're too big for all your "preemie" size clothes.
You really liked your pacifier this evening. When I was laying with you on our bed, I gave it to you to suck on. I thought it was cute so I took a little video of you with it. Every time it fell out, daddy put it back for you. :-)
I read to you for about an hour today. I was behind on my Bible reading, so I read you different parts of the Bible. You fell asleep as I was reading.
Today is your (Great) Aunt Allyson's birthday (daddy's aunt). :-) She'll hopefully be able to see and hold you soon.
You are such a darling little angel!
I love you very much!
~Mommy
Dearest Joshua,
ReplyDeleteAllow me to introduce myself. I’m your Uncle Zeker, and I hope to meet you tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve heard all manner of eccentric tales about me, and you know, they’re all quite true. I’m the uncle who dresses up as a leprechaun for every Saint Patrick’s Day, who writes stories about Puey and the Princess, and who likes to make up a language. I’m sure you’ll want to debate the finer points of Klingon morphosyntax or the way infixes work in the Na’vi language, but if you want some real fun we can try to talk to each other in Babel, the language I invented.
Your great-grandfather Ranger Jim likes to tell stories about someone hight Puey. When I was eight years old I started writing mine own stories about Puey, but I quickly added many other characters, such as Princess Éfhelìnye and all manner of candy pirates, ninja spies, clockwork automata, giants, dragons, and other riffraff. By the time I was twelve years of age I realized that Puey and the gang were writing and speaking a language quite unlike our own, and I’ve been working on it e'er since. Here’s a bit of a song from our world translated into Babel, the language of the Land of Story.
Janayeilyoriênya teir!Tsóriêna teirxhmi!Tsóriêna teirxhmi!Tsóriêna xhmir Khyexhuwakh!Tsóriêna teirxhmi! Thou, dear one, art mine esteemed sunshine!Good omens to dear thee!Good omens to dear thee!Good omens to Joshua!Good omens to dear thee!
Janayeilyoriênya teirXá janayeilyoriênya’ ùwasu.Uxeûxujo’ ur qoe jin tóxingEipejo pejor tlhoâ ker wthàsya.Pàjeqúr qìfhis qìfhis teir ányarqloîyuKuxhroas kúlatser qlùwe khleit jin.Jhafhuxhlitei khringìmemat xhroeJanayeilyoriênya xhroa!
Thou, dear one, art mine esteemed sunshineOh mine esteemed, only sunshine.
Thou dearly enhappiest me
When it is a sky that is dirty grey, griseous.Thou shalt nowhen ever gnow, beloved and dear one,How much I dearly love thee.
Respectfully refuse to take awayMine esteemed sunshine.
Tsóriêna teirxhmi!
Tsóriêna teirxhmi!Tsóriêna xhmir Khyexhuwakh!Tsóriêna teirxhmi!Janayeilyoriênya teir! Good omens to dear thee!Good omens to dear thee!Good omens to Éfhelìnye!Good omens to dear thee!Thou, dear one, art mine esteemed sunshine!
(Comment continued)
Don’t be fooled though by how unusual the language may appear. Already you know quite a deal about your own natal language. Even before a child is born he can distinguish among his Mother’s language and another language simply because of the difference in stress and syllabification. Already your mind is picking up on clews as to the way the English is put together, the rhythms and patterns of it. In about a year your vocal apparatus will be developed sufficiently so that you can start experimenting with producing some of these sounds yourself. You may be confused at first, because you will be able to produce hundreds of different sounds, but any single language only makes use of a small set of them. So although you’ll figure out how to make ejective consonants – like in Na’vi and certain affricate sounds – like in Klingon – or clicks such as in Xhosa, you’ll find out in the coming months which sounds are actually meaningful in English and how to pronounce them. You may want to start out with DAA DAA DAA and BAA BAA BAA since those are easier to pronounce than nasals such as MAA or NAA or NGAA. Although if you want to start with clicks, go ahead. Clicks are cool. In the Babel text above there is one click in the word tóxing dear thou, which is pronounced something like TOE-(click!)-ing. Pretty soon you’ll figure out the words for ME, YOU, MINE, NO, and WANT. Those are important words in any language. One can tell an entire story with just those words.
ReplyDeleteYou want?
No!
Me want!
Mine!
Before you know it you’ll actually start putting together sentences that are more complicated than the ones your parents will speak to you; the reason is that you’ll be figuring out how nouns and verbs and other parts of speech actually work rather than have it taught to you step by step.
Soon you’ll be talking and telling stories of your own. You’re perfectly welcome to tell stories about Puey and the Princess all you want. Puey, however, doesn’t talk; he can bark and mew and squeak in the languages of beasts. Princess Éfhelìnye can talk, and in fact in the stories I write she was the one to create the Babel Language. What. A. Nerd.
Well, that’s enough for now. I have to pack so that I can visit you. Which do you prefer for me to wear, a pirate hat or a Santa hat? Oh, I’ll just bring both.
Lots of love,
Tlhenítlhàrtlhaji Tsiîkher
Uncle Zeker