Sunday, March 05, 2006

How do I file this?

A stack of loose CDs has been sitting in my living room for a couple of days -- the aftermath of my first rush to shovel them onto my new iPod. This morning, in a fit of industry, Lyn began putting them back with the other CDs, which she'd carefully alphabetized a few months ago.

As I was washing the breakfast dishes, she came in with a CD that my pal Kevin gave me. Its title

‫ייִדישלידער


is written in Hebrew characters. (Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet for the same reason English uses the Roman, and Russian the Cyrillic: people who are inventing a writing system just adapt the one they already know.)

"How do I file this?" she asked.

"Under 'Yud'."

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