Sense 2: the gift of language, acoustically speaking

This morning I went to see P at her beautiful pied a terre in Neve Tzedek. A play of hers Forbidden has been translated to Hebrew and we briefly mulled over its options in Tel Aviv and as a provisional educational production in London. A rehearsed reading at the Hampstead Theatre in 2008 was directed by Yael Ronen's brother and the play deals with a fictionalised version of a real lesbian relationship between a Jewish girl and wife of a Nazi officer in Berlin during the Second World War.

As 2 British-born women of very different ages, Jewish identities and arts/non-arts backgrounds but with special long-term relationships with Israel, our talk soon turned to language. P lived in Jerusalem for 3 years in her early twenties where she intermittently learnt Hebrew (she is now fluent) and worked in the language before returning to England and working extensively in radio and journalism before writing her first play around 10 years ago..."I was supposed to go back to England briefly and return here but it never happened - be careful of that." We spoke of the beauty of translation from English to Hebrew and vice versa. As a kid I really wanted to be a translator between English, French and Spanish. On the rare occasions I chose to do my homework properly I would play around for hours with the words and dream about changing the face Le Petit Prince and Poeta En Nueva York through my radical linguistic reinterpretations. On the one hand I just look back and laugh but then now, even watching plays in Ivrit, my level of which is well below pidgen, I find myself translating the words and guessed phrases to English and sometimes even French...mixing and mistaking with no impact and no consequence whatsoever. If only I applied the same amount of concerted effort to learning my Ivrit verb endings.


It comes up again and again, the crime of kids no longer having to learn a language at GCSE in England. Oh yes it is so demeaning to those who are not good at languages. Yeah well what about if you are shit at maths. Anyway, I do think languages give an added dimension, awareness of other cultures etc but it is not just that. There is something about people who are into languages, those who speak more than one fluently or at least quite well. Because to do so post-childhood without living in a country where you just have to requires a certain amount of effort and engagement with something beyond your immediate world. Learning a second language as a kid, even just a bit, plants something that might just grow depending on later formative years...even if those just include a sight, sound or song that rouses the curiosity of brain and tongue.

Liron chose the perfect cake to welcome Nico home, Rachel to the Karov and me to full-time-Karov-less life. In the shape of a heart with hardcore "tahana" frosting it merged a treat with our champagne and usual chaotic multilingual talk of work, play, plays and workshops and countries and more. Nico speaks English well when he gets a little more into talking at length. It was a treat to see him back at the Karov with everyone else around - Liron, Linor, Dorit, Hadar and of course Rachel who seems more engaged every day with her love for the theatre.

At 5.30 Er. and R took me to the special tobacco shop as promised. What a place!! You can try the tobacco as you'd try wine and there's all sorts of exciting flavours including rose and caramel, both of which I sampled before choosing the latter. ER brought the dogs and in spite of myself I actually felt quite bonded. Particularly struck by R's sense with Bamba, the 3-year-old and knowledge of how to discipline and respect but without that sickening sentimental vibe you get with a lot of dog owners. The other one, Mitzi, is old - 15 - and going blind. Often she is slow slow slow whilst B of course rushes ahead, not long out of puppyhood. We had a fast/slow walk back to Florentin, talking about football and its universality - the beyond-language it's become for nations the world over. R told me how Hitler was well into football because it gives countries the chance to assert and prove their superiority. My immediate thought was of the tactic-based nature of football and its relation to the Final Solution. I said so and R related it to the coolly strategic way in which the German team plays and how all the other world teams play, each with their own culture-based trends all of which work on some level. So much depends on your opponent, I suppose.

I had my first Icity coffee, sitting with ER and the kelevot on the corner of Florentin and something. How does our parents' relationship with language affect us? R wants to learn French. His roots are Russian and it is his first language. I had no idea of the linguistic and cultural influence of France on St Petersburg. R wants to learn French, Spanish and German...enough to get by, fluency not necessary. With architecture, its grandioseness in Russia next to sheer poverty and likewise in Paris/London/all major cities etc we got to thinking about Tel Aviv and its major differences in that sense. Language and a constant sense of communication bring about proximity, again not in terms of the sentimental but rather the unavoidable. You see people constantly you know in the street. A citizen featuring in a national news story is connected intimately to at least someone you know knows. It was through such a connection I discovered E's childhood fascination with Sara Ahranson and her family's story..."At the age of 6 I loved it so much I used to read that great big book with my parents and go always to the museum. You don't know what a sense of nostalgia this has reawakened...". My mum once told me one of the saddest moments of her life was seeing a tiny child pass a bookshop with his mother and start to bang on the window saying "Books! Books!" and the mother's reply, "Don't be silly, they're only books. Time to go home." R's father and grandfather both ran classes for the deaf, just like my mum used to teach literature to blind students. Had that kind of interest not been the case, and E's parents been weirded out by their little girl asking again and again to read and explore the Ahranson legacy, I wonder how we'd be different.

Would I be uselessly transposing sentences I can barely string together into languages I barely know?

Would E continue altering dynamics in theatres and dimensions in photographs?

And would R know in a matter of seconds the acoustics of a room by visible materials or a couple of hand claps?

Who knows. Who cares. And language and sound we can separate into worlds of signs, musical notes and vibrations...do you know of the deaf man who created an entire system through clicking his tongue in different ways and sensing the materials around him by how they responded? But we need to be aware of stuff like that at least, just be aware.