Lingua Uniuersalis

Jett,

  Sì sì, oc oc, once upon a time there was a Universal Language, every educated person read it, most wrote and spoke it.  It lasted 2 millennia, indeed, it gave us the word 'millennium' and its exotic plural.

  Every educated person, I mean to say, who wasn't educated in China, India, practically all of Asia, all of Australia and Antarctica, all but the top fringe of Africa, not to mention North, Central, and South America.  And associated islands.

  As Latin faded into a sort of indistinct, dusky afterlife with tantalising glimmers of stunning eroticism and braininess, Esperanto came into being to take its place.  Esperanto:  66% Latin, 33% Anglo-sassone.

  It was obvious to its inventor that the Brits and Austrians and Hessians, the French and Spaniards, and, magari, Italy and Romania, would forever rule the world.

  It is not obvious to me that that is likely to be the case bimeby.

  O just beat me over the head with Milo, I'm so veddy veddy pc. 

  And yet, the only reason, me seemeth, that Chinese will not become the lingua franca soonishly, is that it is way too difficult to learn.  At least Hindi is Indo-European.  Linguists know the tricks to devolve the modern words back to their roots, and then evolve them forward into a cousin modern language.

  Pace Captain Fantastic, a lingua uniuersalis must be as accessible to a Quechua or Maori as it is to Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan.  Moreover a lingua uniuersalis must be as intelligible to Seth, aka my pc, as it would be to Baudolino (compulsive Umberto Eco allusion, je suis désolé).

  On the path to Ietspik . . . .--Giac 

Jett Works Magick

   I'd paid for my espresso, joked with the barista, taken a sip.  It tasted as if someone there still troubles to clean the machine every night.

   I turned, you'd materialised from thin air. 

   Magick!

   Alas, as long as there are susceptible folk, who want to be characters in novels, there'll be Magick.  From now on, whenever I sip an espresso, I'll turn and make excuses if you aren't there.  A mistake in the rite, an error in the spell.  My fault, no doubt.

   Povera Ifigenia!  Padre predisposto, vittima lui stesso di un prete furfante.  Povera Ifigenia, niente bidente sfortunato come sosia.

 

   I was so startled by your apparition, I hadn't time to pretend to be glad to see you.  So I didn't pretend.

 

   Catulli Carmen l.  That's how it was.  Whatever theme you started, I developed.  Whatever theme I started, you developed.  Like the 8-year-old boy, our minds had been working through the night.

   Ideography.  Esperanto.  Catullus.  Caluus.--Giac

Jett!

Jett!  Voglio dire, Giaietto!--Giac

Captain Fantastic

   'You're a professor, aren't you,' she said confidently as she sat there with husband and son in the bar.

   'O no no no no no,' I assured her, 'just outstandingly near-sighted.'

   They were in town for a wedding, had surveyed the used book store nextdoor, were nursing coffee and soft-fruit tarts till it was time for Captain Fantastic at the neighbourhood cinema.

   'According to the reviews,' said the twenty-something, 'it's the story of my life.'  For Dad most assuredly is a professor, in Chicago.

   'Lucky lad,' I thought to myself.  Minus, of course, the rock climbing.--Giac

mare!

  The neighbour's mare got out this morning.  She was so tame, she would not be whispered back. 
  Neighbour not at home.
  A pickup truck comes along.  Slowly. 
  Nevertheless, the mare spooks, gallops off to who knows where.
  I get in the car to search for her.  I'm scarcely at the bottom of the hill when the Good Samaritan appears.  The mare has run to his farm, he's shut her up with his own horse, and in the absence of the owner, he proceeds to repair the gap in the fence, then restore the mare to her own pasture.
  Living in the country . . . .  Per precisare, in the ungentrified, authentic country.--Giac