There’s no mistaking a language which can uncork a grave accent, an acute accent, a circumflex accent and a dieresis, all in the space of a single written utterance, as not-French. As I coax these diacritic delicacies from my keyboard in frank extase of Francophilia, my fluent touch-typing slows to a tortoise gait.

French is called the “most Germanic” of the Romance languages, while English, intensely Gallicized, ranks as the most Roman of the Germanic languages. The swirls and eddies of the cross-tonguing, the churn and spurn of embrace, are involving.

Of questionable relevance, who doesn’t know that “yeah” isn’t written “yea”? A substantial few, it seems. Nay to “yea” except when voicing a vote, says the insufferable formalist.

The tongue has no bones is a Moroccan saying. I’m not sure what it means in that culture, but the truth of the organ’s bonelessness is non-negotiable in most circles.

That’s me for now.

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