This dispatch was first published 22 May 2013

Guten Tag Freunden,

In the TV Series ‘Planet Word’ Stephen Fry discussed the resurrection of the Hebrew language with an Israeli professor. The professor said it could be looked at two ways. A Phoenix rising from the ashes or a cuckoo. Wendy immediately caught on to what the professor meant; I had to have it explained and think about it. A Yiddish egg had been laid in a Hebrew nest.

Whilst everyone learned to speak the resurrected language, the psyche of the speakers, their mind-space, their weltanschauung was Yiddish/Jewish rather than Hebrew/Israeli.

Stephen Fry pondered what if Yiddish had been chosen by the chosen people as the official language of their new nation. He concluded that Israel would have been a lot funnier if it had.

It does make you wonder if the likelihood of that once ‘jewel of the Mediterranean’, Lebanon, having been bombarded would have been lessened if their neighbours used such wonderful words as meschuggenneh, kvatch  and schlemiel not to mention the verb schlepping in their everyday speech.

Cuckoos are a family of birds. http://youtu.be/r0wKxFPCz1Y

Many species are brood parasites laying their eggs in the nests of other species….. Cuckoo eggs hatch earlier than the host species’ eggs and the cuckoo chicks often push their step brothers and sisters out of the nest. They claim ownership of the nest.

Cuckoos are clever. In the Black Forrest of Germany they have learned to count and tell the time. They also can dance.
http://youtu.be/bHNPKkvcK38
In the Warlpiri region there are several cuckoo species:

Karlpurrukarlpurru or pinparlajarrpa – Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike

Purrjurtururturu– Ground Cuckoo-shrike

Nyirawu – Horsfield’s bronze cuckoo

Nyirawu ngulaju jurlpu kuuku-kurlangu (The nyirawu bird belongs to the kurdaitcha man).

The kurdaitcha men traditionally used to wear emu-feather boots (so as to leave no tracks) and sneak up on their enemies to extract revenge.

Kurdaitcha men are known in Warlpiri as janpa or kuuku pronounced (you guessed it) cuckoo.

When Yuendumu first got a police station, a kuuku on a revenge mission got drunk and was arrested. Virtually the whole Yuendumu population gathered outside the station wanting to get a look at the kuuku. Our curiosity wasn’t satisfied. Police snuck the kuuku out of the back of the station and took him to Alice Springs to face alcohol related charges.

Jenny Macklin (The responsible minister at that time, Ed) recently announced that under the Stronger Futures initiative, four new Police Stations will be installed on remote Aboriginal communities. They don’t call them Police Stations anymore. They’ve been rebadged ‘complexes’. The odds of any of these Police Complexes holding drunken kuukus in the Stronger Futures are slim.

Remote police stations used to employ police tracker chicks, the cuckoo police chicks have pushed the police tracker chicks out of the nest.

Remote health clinics used to employ ngankayi (traditional healer) chicks, the cuckoo health worker chicks, have pushed the ngankayi chicks out of the nest.

At Yuendumu there was a WYN Health nest (Willowra-Yuendumu-Nyirrpi) that was supposed to eventually take over the feeding and looking after of the chicks. Territory Health cuckoo chicks have pushed out the WYN chicks and Territory Health cuckoos have taken ownership of the WYN Health nest.

Remote Housing Association chicks have been pushed out of their nests by Outside Contractor cuckoo chicks. Territory Housing cuckoos have taken ownership of the nests.

This is getting rather monotonous. Suffice it to say that the Intervention is one hell of a giant cuckoo mother…

The Interventionists lay lots of eggs and take ownership of all our nests. Only then do they bother to feather them.

Auf wieder sehen und Shalom,

Frank

PS- Another reason why I’m so glad that my family didn’t stay in the Netherlands:
http://youtu.be/IQEXYBbcHkM

And as an antidote to the Dutch kvatch, another song about cuckoos
http://youtu.be/oSbYOqydOlI