Poem: "What We Say in Passing"
This poem came out of the July 6, 2010 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from siege. It was sponsored by laffingkat as part of the 2010 Holiday Poetry Sale. Happy Whateverday, and many thanks.
siege threw out two xenolinguistic tidbits, and of course I was off like a fox after a rabbit. I added some bits from other invented and natural languages to explore how we greet each other...
What We Say in Passing
In English, hello has no meaning
beyond its own greeting;
only the etymology tells us
that it came from Old High German halâ,
emphatic imperative of halôn, "to fetch,"
used especially in hailing a ferryman.
In Hawaiian, aloha means "love,"
"affection," "peace," "compassion," "mercy" ...
and "hello" and "goodbye."
With this word we wish good things to each other
whenever we meet, pass by, or part.
The languages we build like model ships
carry our imaginations forward, farther --
A'hu e! is a little blessing,
in north-continent plains draconic,
extending a benison from speaker to hearer.
O-nokth! means merely "[you] walker," in mid-east teurathic
an observation that someone is there, and walking, used as
a friendly greeting to anyone, not just passers-by or those on a journey.
We are always blessed; we are always going from somewhere to somewhere,
but we do not always remark upon it.
Wil sha says "Let there be harmony,"
for in Láadan lovingkindness is the rule and the goal
and the grammar.
nuqneH says "What do you want?"
for in Klingon the prime consideration is enemy or ally,
an exchange of interruptions and favors and opportunities,
targets scattered all over the place.
In Torn Tongue, neither karal nor haruu
has any other meaning beyond the hail itself
but karal is heard only at close range
while haruu calls from afar,
a hidden linguistic whisper of the importance of distance.
What we say in passing
is a glimpse of history, a chip of import,
hinting at a meaning too common for comment,
yet too true to fall away
even when we have forgotten its origin.