Literacy is such a fundamental aspect of modernity that we cannot imagine not reading. If there is a series of strokes that can be interpreted as letters, the brain just treats them as such. They may represent a word I know or a weird admixture of foreign sounds—it doesn’t matter: I can’t not parse the lexical tokens.
How strange, then, to be in a foreign land where not only do I not know the language, but the alphabet itself is foreign. Though the people here in Israel generally speak at least some English, most signs do not have English versions (why should they, of course?). I am left puzzling over random squiggles that are not associated with phonemes in my mind yet, trying to consciously identify the couple of sounds that I know. It amuses me to feel so intensely how much our civilization depends on the written word just to function, and to wonder what life must be like for illiterate adults for whom the constant stream of written information, at once intellectual lifeblood and distracting noise, is non-existent.
Hearing spoken Hebrew is just a hair better, as here or there I recognize one of the words in my micro-vocabulary: “yes,” “no,” “water,” “please,” “thank you,” “peace.” (Hmmm, that would make for an interesting plot outline). I find it weirdly fascinating to be able to almost automatically tune out others talking, since their incomprehensible gibberish does not cause mental static like it would if they were speaking a language I know. Ironically, one of the mental games that I like to play is trying to think without words—a very hard proposition (try it!). Being in a setting where the language is so foreign provides a good approximation, I’m guessing, to what that must feel like.
