All the verses tell about different things the singer does in Hebrew. Daily things - I wake up in Hebrew, drink my coffee in Hebrew, count sheep in Hebrew and tell you good night in Hebrew,
but (!), he says, at night - when I dream - I dream in Spanish, my mother tongue.
I know we've been all over language and not only once and it is a common topic in muwci and among Philo students. But lately I've been experiencing again and again little things that make me think about language.
I feel so comfortable now in English - I don't have to think before I speak, it comes out naturally (almost all the time) and even when I speak to Israelis on campus I sometimes mix a word here and there in English (but not when I talk to people back home).
Yet in a way I really identify with what the children song says. It's is not that I literally dream at night in Hebrew - but I feel that the language has deep roots in me. That other languages may be communication tools and are great and interesting and wonderful to know - but Hebrew is something that relates to culture for me. English is a culture - but it is a muwci culture for me, a limited culture, a culture I adopted but I didn't grow up with. A culture of a global village and of internationalization.
I had so many ideas lately to do something for the next wada concert - and I've been trying to translate several songs in different occasions and even a skit - but I never seem to be able to translate the feeling. To translate it properly. (I even wanted to translate the Children song now - Dreaming in Spanish but found it loses its magic)
I don't think this prevents people from really getting to know me. I am who I am right and here (that relates to Hume's article we read last year, I think - that our mind is a theater and our identity the actors that keep changing. a bundle of perceptions)
I do feel I can express myself and get across to people. What I feel does not come across is not my identity but maybe more my culture, my background. It is something I would very much like to share with others - but find it hard without the Hebrew.
I'm sure people have a different "feel" in their language. They joke and maybe behave slightly different (or appear to behave) but since we live here for so long now and feel comfortable in English and our identity has been shaped in this place - I think we can truly get to know each other and the mother tongue is not a necessity for that.
But it is a necessity for me. for my interaction with myself and for my soul everywhere. In a Hebrew speaking community, an English speaking community or on your own - it does not have to involve anyone else but the strong feeling of affiliation I have with it. A personal thing.
This is the children's song, by the way.
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