Здравствуйте, Ёжик!

Mystery, right?

In computer programming, when you are trying to get a new language to work, and want to check syntax, you try to get a program, usually just a line or two, that prints on command. If you are successful, you are greeted with “Hello World.” Serious. Go on. Google “Hello World.” See. I wasn’t making that up.

Hello, World!

In DuoLingo you learn lots of weird words, and useless phrases… For a few years I binge watched a bunch of “Nordic Noir” movies and series. The genre originally came from Sweden. Slow-moving. Sometimes plodding. Police procedural dramas. Hero has been traumatized, or is somehow psychologically off-kilter. Or just sad. Shows popped up across Scandinavia, and in Britain and Northern Ireland. There was a weak remake of one done in the US. Broadchurch was award-winning, or should have been. I’m too lazy to look it up. Shetland was alright. I loved Happy Valley – although for these depressing creations I’m not sure “love” fits. The Fall in Northern Ireland, with Dana Scully playing an actor playing a detective. A bunch in Finland, Norway, Iceland, etc. By my absolute favorite was Hinterland. It was set in Wales. One episode I was watching (this was all in English by the way) and a local doesn’t like our detective, and says something. From the tone of voice, it was mean. But the words? They were not English. I was curious, and started digging. Apparently I was watching one version. The other version, the hit version “over there” was filmed bilingual. It was complicated. Some characters were Welsh-dominant. Some code-shifted effortlessly. And some were less comfortable in Welsh. And there may have been some English characters who didn’t know a word (and no, that does not include the detective. He lived in England for a long time, but was in fact Welsh, so while his Welsh was uneven, he did speak, and he gets better through the show). And to make this happen, the actual cast was all bilingual, and each episode was filmed twice. Ok, so now I see a few episodes in the hit bilingual original. Called Hinterland in English, and Y Gwyll in Welsh. Too cool. I go to DuoLingo and say “teach me Welsh” and I spent a few weeks, and all I remember is “Bore da, Draig!”

Good morning, Dragon!

Which brings me to the title of this post. I am using WordPress. And not writing frequently, or at least not consistently. And if I ever had a fanbase, I’ve lost most of it. But someone named Eozhik is liking most of my posts. Funny looking name, right? Except I think I recognize it. Eo sound like “Yo!” and if it were in Cyrillic would be written as an e with two dots: Ё. Zh sounds like how a French speaker would say “jour” as in “Bonjour” – like a sh with the voicebox vibrating. There’s a Cyrillic letter for that, too: ж. And ik? Like Ick. In Cyrillic just an “ee”+”k” = ик. And put them together – we get Ёжик, which is apparently the name of my new fan. It’s also the Russian word for hedgehog.

Greetings, Hedgehog!