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Hymn of the Week – Thou, My Everlasting Portion

Poetry by Fanny J. Crosby (1874)
Music by S. J. Vail (1874)

Thou, my everlasting portion,
More than friend or life to me;
All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to thee!
All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee.

Lead me through the vale of shadows,
Bear me o’er life’s fitful sea;
Then the gate of life eternal
May I enter, Lord, with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to thee!
Then the gate of life eternal
May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

Interview about Nahuatl

Read interview at Freelang

I hope all my faithful readers (who may or may not exist) enjoyed a happy Christmas yesterday! Mine was very pleasant here in Texas with my family, and we were even treated to a short snowfall yesterday evening.

Although I’m sort of in-between language learning missions at the moment, Nahuatl is certainly still on the brain, and I thought I would share with you some interesting reading about Nahuatl.

Beaumont, the webmaster over at Freelang.net did an e-mail interview with me a while back during my Nahuatl mission, and it is up on his site for your reading pleasure. We mostly talked about Nahuatl, but he also asked me about some of my other languages and plans. As my first ever interview, I rather enjoyed it!

I hope the interview will be encouraging, and perhaps even generate some interest in Nahuatl as a modern, living language. It seems like most learners go for the classical variety, but what many don’t realize is that Nahuatl is still a living, thriving language. I admit it’s useful to learn historical languages in order to read old texts, but I enjoy much more actually using a language to communicate and make friends. And through modern Nahuatl I have done just that!

And in case you’re wondering what Freelang.net is, it’s a useful website with wordlists for many languages, multilingual phrases, and even free human translation. I’m one of the volunteer translators there, and if ever you need a short text translated, you should check out Freelang! We are always happy to help.

Hope you enjoy the interview, and stay tuned for announcements about my next language mission: Korean!

Read interview at Freelang

Hymn of the Week – Blest Be the Tie That Binds

Poetry by John Fawcett (1782)
Music by Johann George N盲geli (1828)
Audio recording

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father鈥檚 throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

Talented Presents

I had never thought about Amazon’s products being talented, but a couple of days ago I got an e-mail that proudly proclaimed

Kindle Fire HD: The #1 most gifted product on Amazon

That sounds a bit presumptuous to me. Of course they’re proud of their own creation, this electronic device with a name that sounds like it might burn down your house, but #1 most gifted? That’s even redundant. Take for example, this Swiss army knife. You may not be able to check Facebook with it, but if this isn’t a gifted product, I don’t know what is. Look at that thing: it has a ruler, scissors, saw, magnifying glass, screwdriver–that is one gifted product.

OK, enough of that. I come out from under my rock often enough to know that the Anglosphere has verbed the noun “gift,” and while I’m not against language change in the least, this one seems a wee bit absurd. There’s not even a lexical gap there! On Christmas Day, I’ll have you know, I do not gift presents, I give them. And believe it or not, this handy verb comes with a past participle, so I could even say that the Kindle Fire is the most given product on Amazon.

So if you want a gifted gift to gift for Christmas, just ask Amazon.

Hymn of the Week – Now the Day Is Over

Music by Joseph Barnby (1868)
Poetry by Sabine Baring-Gould (1865)

Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh;
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.

Jesus, give the weary
Calm and sweet repose;
With Thy tenderest blessing
May our eyelids close.

Grant to little children
Visions bright of Thee;
Guard the sailors tossing
On the deep blue sea.

Comfort every sufferer
Watching late in pain;
Those who plan some evil
From their sin restrain.

When the morning wakens,
Then may I arise
Pure, and fresh, and sinless
In Thy holy eyes.

Amen.