Inner Anthropologist

I am in touch with my inner anthropologist. I’m most interested in linguistic anthropology. What message(s) do words convey? I studied language on a cellular level in undergraduate school. I learned in college that consonants and vowels are inextricably linked. The truth is you can pronounce a vowel without a consonant, but not a consonant without a vowel. In English, you say “k” with an a and “t” with an e. When you see an isolated consonant in the alphabet, you pronounce it with an accompanying vowel sound. What amazes me is that the Amharic Fidel (alphabet or script) weds consonants with vowels or presents vowels by themselves. A row from the Amharic alphabet has seven variations:

ሀ. ha · ሁ. hu · ሂ. hee · ሃ. haa · ሄ. hae · ህ. heh · ሆ. ho.

This is the first row. Vowels are embedded in the variations.

My anthropology professor taught me that consonants symbolize thoughts and vowels symbolize emotions. Just as a vowel can stand on its own, but a consonant is associated with a vowel, a feeling can emerge without a thought, but a thought is always connected with an emotion. While philosopher Descartes postulated, “I think, therefore, I am,” Audre Lorde, poet and feminist, wrote “…I feel, therefore I can be free.” Where is freedom found? Language liberates us. Not that there is a word for everything, but there is a form of expression that connects us to our divine source (vertical union) and reflects our humanity (horizontal relationship). We thrive when we encapsulate thoughts and emotions in simple syllables. Thought alone is not enough. As I mentioned before, thoughts and emotions are intertwined.

Like Lorde, we are all poets. Poetry makes us human. One belief is that we are each God’s poem. Machines will never catch up to the human or divinely-inspired ability to write poetry. When writing in Semitic languages, like Arabic or Hebrew, it is common to write a string of consonants without vowels. It’s possible to read the Bible or the Qur’an without vowels. It’s possible to even read the newspaper or a short story without adding vowels. Does this mean that it is easier to connect consonants (thoughts) than it is to process vowels (emotions)?

When digesting a text written with consonants alone, do we have the correct vowels or emotions attached? This means more than word choice, but worldview. Uniting thoughts and emotions is living in harmony with the heart and the mind. What we feel in our hearts is less emphasized in Judaism, which is more focused on behaviors than beliefs. Christians are united based on a nuanced faith in Christ, who is recognized as human and/or divine. Jesus is the head of the church. Islam teaches us in a Hadith that the prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH), stated: “Beware! There is a piece of flesh in the body if it remains healthy the whole body becomes healthy, and if it is diseased, the whole body becomes diseased. Beware, it is the heart.”

We must carefully guard our hearts. When I read the Bible, I cry as I come across accounts of people dying. People like Aaron, the High Priest. Like Moses, a humble, powerful leader. Like disbelievers who disobeyed God and experienced the torment of death. When I read the Qur’an, I fear for the hypocrites who face a severe, painful punishment after the grave. When I read the newspaper, I’m deeply saddened by a loss of life, especially innocent life, but how does this impact my actions? Am I doing enough to awaken others to the truth? Is it not better to replace pity with compassion?

The heart and mind are battlefields. When we see an injustice, it is important to act. Yet, the least we can do is to know the truth and understand what is fair in our hearts even if we do not take on any specific action. In a Hadith, it’s written: I heard the Messenger of Allah (SAW) say, “Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.” [Muslim]

The heart is capable of reason. The heart is the seat of the spirit. The human mind is linked with the soul and intellect. So, what drives our actions - our thoughts or emotions? Both, but how do we influence others? When portraying a situation, do we employ cold logic or do we imbue feelings?

As I study Hebrew and Arabic, it helps me to combine vowels and consonants on the written or printed page. Otherwise, there’s too much guesswork and room for interpretation. What if we read the same story repeatedly and it is so familiar to us that we abbreviate words to quicken our pace? What if we know what to expect instead of being open to new perspectives? The way we write makes a difference. Stories, statistics, facts, and speech spark movements that can transform or enlighten. How else can we judge changing situations - sociopolitical or economic? Does everything get filtered through the same lens? Words incorporate thoughts and emotions. We need to paint with both dark and light colors. We need to contrast. We need to meditate, not just move at a rapid pace or hear the same narrative again and again. Humans are not a monolith. Even what is objective changes.

It is written in a Hadith that on the day of Judgment, “Verily Allah does not look to your faces and your wealth, but He looks to your heart and to your deeds.” Here we find peace. God examines the seen and unseen, our behavior and interior. It’s only just.

The beauty of the Amharic language, particularly when compared to the other Semitic languages, like Arabic or Hebrew, is that it is intuitive. It is pronounced as it is seen. If only Amharic speakers were more cultured to be readers, the wisdom of the ages would not be lost on successive generations. Jews read the Torah. Muslims recite the Qur’an. Amharic can be spoken by Muslims or Jews, but it is often associated with Christians. The early church contained icons, because believers were generally illiterate, and icons could easily depict stories from the Bible. Not to portray Christianity as unintellectual, but according to Scripture, heaven is granted to those who are as accepting of blessings as children (Mark 10:13-16). Heaven is not reserved for adults alone. There is wisdom in our youth. In our youth, we cry when we feel pain. We yell. We are silent. We do all these things with the strength of our emotions. Then, we learn to read, and (to oversimplify) we learn to see the world from outside in instead of inside out from our hearts and minds. We internalize messages of hatred. Reading can be divisive or it can unite us. Let us start again with a beginner’s mind. Let us open up our hearts and minds to the Palestinian experience, to the Ethiopian experience, to the American experience, to the Jewish experience and more. We will discover we were once children with a full-range of emotions, and we will nurture our inner child. We can learn a new language. It will feed our soul. Our souls will sing praise as we welcome the world into our homes and words on a page.

May God’s law be inscribed in our hearts. May we feel God’s presence in this lifetime. May we not divorce thought from emotion. May we empathize with those around us and show love to our neighbors, to our friends and strangers.

With love,

Yeru