I, polyglot

I never make New Year's resolutions, but I decided late in December to try to learn to read Hebrew. So far I have completed four video lessons onlline out of a total of 11 in the course and am making good progress. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

I can read Greek (that is, I can pronounce the words even though I have no idea what most of them mean) and I have also attempted to learn to read Russian because I like a good challenge for my brain. It fascinated me that USSR became CCCP in Cyrillic.

I know a smattering of Swedish because I spent a month in Stockholm in 1969. I know a smattering of Albanian because my wife's parents spoke it (Tosk dialect as opposed to Gheg) in their home. I know a smattering of Spanish (maybe a little more than a smattering) because I live in the United States in the 21st century.

I studied French and Latin in school. I can say "How are you?" in Chinese and "Thank you" in Portuguese and "Goodbye" in Japanese and Italian and German. Speaking of German, I can also say Achtung! and Dummkopf.

When asked to demonstrate one's knowledge of French, one might hearken back to one's schooldays and say je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont which means I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are. But I have a friend in Sweden who made me laugh back in 1969 when he demonstrated his French ability by saying je me lave, tu te laves, il se lave, nous nous lavons, vous vous lavez, ils ses lavent which means I wash myself, you wash yourself, he washes himself, we wash ourselves, you wash yourselves, they wash themselves.

I'm still laughing.

The hardest part of learning Hebrew, by the way, is that there are no vowels in the alphabet, just consonants. You probably won't believe how vowels are indicated even if I show you.

The odd thing is that ancient Hebrew had no vowels, all Torah scrolls have no vowels, and modern Hebrew (what is used in Israel today) has no vowels. Vowels were invented by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the fifth or sixth century A.D. (or C.E., if you prefer) so that non-speakers of Hebrew could read the books of the Old Testament.

I think Arabic also uses dots to indicate vowels, but I am not ready to tackle Arabic yet.

Maybe I don't have it in me to be a polyglot.

A quote from Robert Browning seems fitting here: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

But I am still going to do my best to learn to read Hebrew.