Monday, July 21, 2014

An Irishman’s Diary on a match made in Ethiopia

(July 21, 2014, (The Iresh Times))--I was standing on the main street in a small town in Ethiopia, a few hours south of the capital Addis Ababa, studying a noticeboard outside a bar. It listed the times of what I imagined were football matches, probably the English Premier League. At 1.30 it seemed, the bar would be showing “squiggle” versus “squiggle”.

“He asked me in English if I needed help deciphering the noticeboard. I replied, somewhat defiantly, that I was getting on fine, thank you very much. “Look”, I proudly announced, “the first team listed is . . . Cheh-luh-see – Chelsea!”
The problem was that the names of the teams were written in Ethiopia’s main language, which (like its Semitic cousins Hebrew and Arabic) doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. What I took to be the team names were written on the board in this strange script and, without some instruction, it all looks like nothing so much as a great collection of squiggles.

I knew a little bit of this strange alphabet and how its characters represented syllables and I was scrutinising the first fixture when a young boy, maybe nine years old, appeared. He asked me in English if I needed help deciphering the noticeboard.

I replied, somewhat defiantly, that I was getting on fine, thank you very much. “Look”, I proudly announced, “the first team listed is . . . Cheh-luh-see – Chelsea!” Read more from The Ireish Tiems »

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