By: Henok Elias

Polyglot Dr. Richard Benton is passionate about learning the languages of his neighbors – especially marginalized neighbors. He has been learning Afan Oromo of late. How can he, and we, help Afan Oromo speaking peoples best articulate their entrepreneurial, familial, and rural wisdom in the context of 21st Century Minneapolis/St. Paul?

Struggling to connect with language love

With the current senseless border skirmishes in our beloved Ethiopia and Eritrea, it is important for us to learn the relationship betwixt learning our neighbors’ languages and pursuing peace. When we are humble enough to shut up and listen, great things can happen. What if we are not the center of the known universe? What if people who speak other languages than us can have insight that we don’t? What if patience is a virtue? What if a paradigm shift can come from active listening and a softened heart?

Peace comes from speaking another language…or does it?

By: Henok Elias

We are so diverse. Let no one tell you otherwise. I love learning how much I don’t know about subjects that I previously thought I knew a thing or three about. How many Habesha ethnic groups or linguistic groups do you know? I surely did not know of the Anyuak.

Click it, no ticket.

LovingLanguages.

By: Henok Elias

Do you know why your brethren and sistren Oromo speakers are protesting? Do you care? What can you do, besides reading about your homeland on the internet, and informing others? Why don’t you build community with the Oromo speakers closest to you by learning their language? If the Lover of Languages Dr. Richard Benton can devote time to learning the Somali and Oromo tongues in order to make their speakers more comfortable in Minnesota, how much more should Habesha peoples do?*

*The term Habesha, like any term of identity, is mazelike, and interpreted in sundry ways. I have met self-identified Somalis and Oromos who identify as Habesha, and those who distance themselves from the term..

By: Henok Elias

Megabi literally means feeder – one who feeds. It’s oft a religious title associated with Orthodox and Protestant Christianity in Eritrea and Ethiopia. In this context, the megabi feeds his congregation (sheep) the word of God. Synonyms for this context would be shepherd and pastor.* Context is revelatory. The angel in the emblem of Megabi Skate, drawn in ancient Habesha Orthodox style, is one of the sundry images displayed before the mind’s eye of anyone familiar with the word megabi. But, mixing the idea of skating with an angel is a mark of 21st Century food-truck fusion culture mating with existentialism. It’s pretty.

Other translations for megabi could be patron, benefactor, sponsor, or caretaker. Every polyglot, linguist, and philologist worth more than the snot in her nose knows that translation work is always and everywhere nit-picky, fussbudgety, and persnickety. Any way you spin it, Megabi Skate’s a life-giving narrative. Disadvantaged and underserved peoples in Ethiopia are being fed by skateboarding.

“Use what you have, and use it with love”. -Israel Dejene of Megabi Skate

*Some Orthodox ignorantly use pastor as a pejorative, but a minor holiday of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is called ኖላዊ (nolawee-shepherd-pastor). This holy day is  part of what the Western world calls Advent..

By: Henok Elias

English Makes No Sense

this read that thou will have read,

by the end of this thread,

is loud and lit like a function

unhampered by jakes and swine,

delight! as these incongruencies intertwine,

an author not apt at verse, but not the worst,

can quickly converse, in terse diction that will immerse,

hungry eyes into a hodgepodge of cultures,

“appropriate” them or not, I have no fear of vultures.

English Makes No Sense.

By: Henok Elias

Presidents get away with saying, “God bless America”, in supposedly secular spaces, because the U.S. is rooted in the freedom of religion and not the French freedom from religion. Note the might of the tiny words in between freedom and religion. The idea is that putting guns to heads and swords to throats is not good religion. God bless Dr. Richard Benton’s love of languages. He is a Hebrew scholar, native English speaker, and strives to know many of the languages the planet Earth and its inhabitants proffer. Through his blog, Loving Language: Learning languages and connecting with others, Dr. Benton smart bombs envy, enmity, and dissension with joy, love and patience.

As a man who wants to see all of humanity (especially my Habesha family) liberated from indifference toward each other and succumbing to stereotypes against the afflicted, I would be remiss if I did not share with you all two terse blog posts written by Dr. Benton this month.

1. I Want My Children to Learn Somali
2. Pirates, Sexists, Terrorists: Is This All There is to Know About Somalis?

The first post, besides giving a shoutout to Eritreans in Seattle, lauds the intimate Somali way of referring to elders with terms Westerners would associate only with direct blood relatives. This point gives all Habeshas the feels. The second post instructs us how to see through demonization in the media. The secret is humanization through listening to the Other in her native tongue.

Enjoy..

By: Henok Elias

Harari is one of Ethiopia’s 87 languages. Here you get to hear Ms. Enas Adose. She alertly preserves this Afro-Asiatic tongue by sticky glueing 5 minutes of it to the digital realm – in which all things are aere perennius. Note what she has to say regarding languages in segregated linguistic communities versus languages living with their sisters and brothers. It is a classic… nay an ancient tale, yet one you can easily relate to, of differences betwixt the motherland and the diaspora. As your ever-rejoicing and ever-grinning griot, I have the self-imposed mandate to digitally yell “woe to you all”, if you do not heed my word by imaging Ms. Enas Adose. Learn your language. Share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HffcruyfvdI.