Sweet Hubby and I didn't leave the house today because of the smoky air from fires around us, so today my Something New was taking a Duolingo lesson in Swahili.
Really fascinating to attempt to learn a language so very different from mine. If I were going to pursue this study, I would have to review the first, most elemental, lesson, maybe a few times. The lesson was all pronouns and whether someone is Kenyan, Tanzanian, American, or Dutch. The title of this blog entry means "What is my name?" Pretty much all I have retained is that 'ni' means 'is'. I'm still not sure which of these words is 'name' but I think it's 'jinu'.
I have friends who lived in Africa (can't remember which country) and became proficient in Swahili. Maybe that's why I chose that over the other languages Duo offers. Talk about a mind stretch. I'm starting to wish I had infinite time available. I am so hungry to learn, so hungry to read more books, learn more languages, listen to more music, visit more parks and neighborhoods and countries, write more plays. I want to know at the end of my life that I said "I love you" often enough.
I still feel younger than my age, but I finally know for certain and for sure that my time is temporary, limited, finite. I saw that recently all in a flash, that every summer will keep rolling over into fall and fall into winter and winter into spring. I see now the inherent cascading of one year, one season, one day, one moment into another. Time isn't speeding up for me so much as it is becoming clear to me the inexorable progression of seconds that make up my life, every life.
So yeah, Swahili. Interesting.
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