Relativity Theory of Languages

It's my theory, my most basic one, that all the language difficulties in the world would be solved, countless misunderstandings avoided, subtitles thrown to the wind, if only everyone spoke English. It's the easiest to understand and the easiest one to speak.

You don't know how many times a day I go out, say, to a store, and say, "Excuse me, this flyer says this is on sale but you didn't ring me up with that price." See how easy it is to understand?

See, then if it were French I'd have to say something like, "Excusez, mais cette publi-ci mets ce truc comme "sale*sale*sale*" mais la caisse me dit quelque-chose de maudite."

German, it would be "Entshuldigen-sie bitte, ich habe nür eine halbe jahre deutsch gelernt am schule . . . aber Hitler war eine scheisskopf."

Japanese would be "Shitsurei shimasu ga, kono chikaku dewa osushiya-san ga sukunai, desu ne?"

Italian would be "Qui è un'offerta che non potete rifiutare . . ."

Do you see how much easier it is to understand the first sentence than all the others, no matter how mangled they might be?

Okay, don't get your backs up, YOU KNOW I'M KIDDING. Obviously the language YOU speak is the easiest language in the world and you have a right to wonder why the whole world doesn't adopt it because it's THE EASIEST ONE TO UNDERSTAND.

But it got me to thinking . . . (that can never be good, Nick watching a Discovery Channel documentary is always best at this time of night, just TAKE THE COMPUTER AWAY GENTLY, HANDS OFF THE KEYBOARD).

But I'll have to say that if Japanese was the most difficult language I learned to speak fluently in my short life, Hebrew is FAR FAR WORSE.

I remember I used to walk down the street in Japan while transferring between work locations, muttering hard-to-pronounce Japanese phrases under my breath, over and over.

Try saying "kamo shiremasen" very quickly. You have to pronounce it very precisely. It's Kah-moe-shee-ray-mah-sen. SAY IT TEN TIMES VERY QUICKLY.

It just means, "Could be . . ."

But that's a cakewalk. There are no Arabic sounding "khh"s in Japanese. It's a very straightforward language. Easy as pie.

Now try this, in Hebrew: "Sheyihiye lecha yom na'im". "Shay-ee-hee-yay-lechhhah-yom-na-eem."

Bit of a tongue teaser, eh wot? Say THAT ten times in a row. It's a real motivator to get me to get the whole world to sing the song the whole world should be singing, namely English.

And what does it mean?

"Have a nice day."