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Posts By Angel
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| | Macedonia: The Language Bridge
Posted on 06/02/2009 by Isabella
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Macedonian is more difficult than any language I have ever encountered, and I m including Czech and Japanese. For starters, it s written with the Cyrillic alphabet, like Russian, and there s just enough letters that look like the Roman alphabet to make it confusing.
This afternoon, I prevailed on the patience of festival coordinator Natasha, and some surrounding volunteers, and pieced out our hat pass line in Macedonian. Then I spent an hour with a very patient eleven-year-old boy, Datz (nickname " It just makes him shake his head sadly when I try to pronounce his real name), learning to speak it. About half way through, another performer overheard me mangling the tongue of Alexander the Great and said,
I can tell it s your first year, trying to learn your hat line in Macedonian. Good luck with that, eh?
I did not say jaded much? and punch him. Instead, I smiled sweetly and went back to Datz patiently correcting me on a word that sounds like the mating of a laundry mangle and a toaster and means choosing. Like, Choosing to come out to the festival. Like, Choosing to be a part of something real and alive with us and with your friends and family.
Second show, I had it as good as it was going to get today, so I climbed the silk, knotted, sat, and pulled out my piece of paper. Read the line " people smiled at my pronunciation. And then they clapped really hard at the end, when I say they are a beautiful audience and Skopje is the best. And when we passed the hat, it was better than before " and the next show, better still.
And there s always tomorrow.
For the curious " phonetically, in the wrong alphabet:
Dami y Gospodin, samo ushteh neshto (there s a not-quite glottal stop on that last o).
Vo ova vremeh, koga tookuh minoguh
Loogyeh pominouvade nogu maklu vremeh sosebeh pret TV illy komputer,
Fala vinacete shto doidovte tookuh shto odwoochifteh (that s where I get really lost) do odvoiteh malku vremeh de spodeliteh neshto viztinsko y jivo,
Sonas, sovashiteh priatehlee y familia.
Vieste prekrasnah publica.
Skopje nydobra!
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