As I flip channels on my German television set, by far the most surreal experience I can have is pausing on channel 29, TV5Monde: French television with German subtitles. The juxtaposition highlights how almost ostentatiously different the languages of these two neighbors are. I can watch for fifteen minutes and not find a single cognate word. Yesterday I got caught up in a Versailles drama in which grown men were stomping, shouting, and even throwing their long curly wigs across the room over die Wut des Königs. The what of a king? Turns out, Wut means rage or anger–definitely a good reason to throw your wig! And predictably, at the center of all this Wut was a pretty young thing who wasn’t interested in anybody’s Wut but her own.
Clare B. Dunkle
