Monday, October 18, 2010

On a Babel of Language

A week and a half ago we read in the synagogue the Torah portion [for explanation, see HERE]containing the story of the Tower of Babel.. Well only a few days later, we had our own mix-up of languages.
Ricki was playing with E___ , the son of her older sister. Her older sister was busy in the kitchen, and Ricki was talking a mile a minute with E___ . I wasn’t really paying attention, but suddenly Ricki’s sister called out:
“Ricki, how many times do I have to tell you that E___ does NOT speak Yiddish!??!”
Ricki was trying to speak Yiddish to him (the preferred language of the children of one of her older brothers), which definitely hampered communication. Not only because E___ does not understand Yiddish, but Ricki (in spite of her belief to the contrary) does NOT speak Yiddish. (She “babbles” something that sounds a bit like Yiddish, but is really just a mumble-jumble…) But usually the children she “babbles” to are young enough that they don’t mind. After all, the non-verbal attention and communication is still there….

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