Saturday, February 18, 2012

lost in translation

My 7-yr-old daughter is in French Immersion, and is finally getting around to sorting out the difference between written English and French.  I can't imagine how difficult this must be, being quite solidly unilingual myself.  Cleaning up the mess on the floor tonight I came across one of her poems or songs that she writes in between all the other stuff 7-yr-olds do to keep busy.  See if you can figure it out:

I love you mom
I love you wene I wase bone
I lade mi ise ane you
you were the feste pesene vete I lade mi ise on
mom I love you
cate you see I love mom
cane you seye ete on mi frrte mom

The semantics are cute, the diction I can live with, there is a historical inaccuracy in line four, but it is the spelling that I find both exhilarating and terrifying.  I think it holds the clue to the sheer possibility of the human imagination and also the threats to the very survival of human culture.  I have a glimpse of the hoal werlt in a grayne of snad, and a hevin in a wide flore.

My kids are both at awesome ages where we don't really want them to grow up for a while.  It seemed like forever to get here (and it couldn't come fast enough), but now we want things to slow down a bit.  Just the right mix of self-sufficiency and need for love.

Check comments for the translation.

1 comment:

Thielmann said...

I love you mom
I love you when I was born
I laid my eyes on you
you were the first person that I laid my eyes on
mom I love you
can't you see I love you mom
can you see it on my heart mom