þriðjudagur, mars 29, 2005

bæði og

There are a few words like this in English, undecided ones that pull you to and fro over the ticklish edge of your own understanding. Here are some:
moot
cleave
sanction


In a vacuum, they vex more and differently even than Latin hospes. Guest? Host? Whichever it turns out to be, you know what is happening (hospitality) even if you do not know to whom you are speaking; be polite and it will probably work out. But with those English words you do not even know what is going on. Very disorienting.

Different once again is this Icelandic one, one I very much like:
hljóð

It means sound; it also means silence. Sometimes it is best translated as hearing, as in to grant or receive hearing. It is the hush that falls when a group decides to attend to the words of someone who has yet to speak, and then into that silence---hljóð---he does speak, and the words are also hljóð, and I imagine the two senses of the one word fitting neatly and smoothly together, hands grasping each other, polished wood gliding past wood on a soaped track, a dovetail joint. It is very satisfying.

Engin ummæli:

 
Hvaðan þið eruð