Text: Algebra
26. nov 2009 09:08, Ceciliein girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
("We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire")
Some years ago I decided to learn English. My mother tongue is Arabic, and for the first several months, I often experienced a brief panicky feeling of loss, when old habit made me read the words from right to left, and they suddenly all became new and incomprehensible. I later moved to England and almost completely stopped reading Arabic, and then a letter from home could have the same effect. I have the feeling of having spoken my own language for as long as I've existed, maybe longer - and that's probably why it made such a great impression on me when it disappeared in a flash. Sometimes I wonder if all languages in the world arose through such a mistake, when human beings learned to write. Maybe for each language, there is a kind of original language, one that is resurrected if you read in the wrong direction, a language I've never learned to understand. That's why I'm so fond of words like 'mum' and 'dad'.
And what terrifies me most in life is the thought that ethics might be such a mirror language. The idea that I, after having stayed within the narrow path of virtue all my life, will suddenly realize that I've been reading the Qur'an upside down. I would never get used to that. I can deal with being a plus or a zero. But not a minus.
