Nov 6, 2010

Multilingual living I: La vie, etc


It seems to me that certain words, due to phonetics and graphics of the word itself, are resonating better with their meaning than others…..

For example the word for “life”

Life

La vie

Жизнь [Zizn’]

חיים [Khaiim]

To me the French word contains the most “livelihood “ – the smells, the air, the sounds - and all the rest of it that constitutes life

On the other hand the Hebrew word for “snow” is the closest to its meaning in my mind (out of the following options):

Snow

Neige

Снег [Sneg]

שלג [Sheleg]

The Hebrew word somehow carries in it each and every snowflake, while they are falling to the ground and disappearing among the myriad of others

Is it me or do others also create their own internal language out of the external languages at their disposal, to communicate better with their respective selves and occasional others and get a clearer picture of what is going on? J

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