The Italian Lesson

Magari: and Holiday Message

Magari: conjunction

I wish, if only: "Magari this hot weather will cool off."

From Greek root, makários, meaning happy, blessed.

I've seen it so many times; traveling international families that, as well as their mother tongue, speak a private family language with word borrowings from the various languages of the countries where they have resided.

Frequently, in another language one learns words that just have no substitute in the mother tongue. A simple example would be the plural YOU, which is no different in English from the singular YOU. How much easier it would be, as a writer, if we could use the vernacular YOUSE or YOU'LL. Once one becomes used to a plural YOU it's hard to do without it.

My favorite such word is the Italian word magari, once magari becomes part of ones vocabulary it's hard to replace in another language. It seems an especially good word for New Years thoughts for the future.

• Magari my Japanese gets better in 2007.
• Magari I will lose another 20 kilos this year.
• Magari the future of my health and brain will allow me to continue teaching another 25 years.
• Magari ignorance and intolerance could be replaced by knowledge and wisdom.
• Magari we will find a way to correct overpopulation and the destruction of our ecosystems before it's too late.
• Magari greed will not take away mankind's natural quest to explore and better understand our universe.
• Magari the human life and money invested in sustaining the war could be redirected to education.
• Magari music will always play a strategic part in improving our lives.
• Magari mankind never loses vision and the capacity to dream.
• Magari all of you have a wonderful and fulfilling new year.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year,

Roger - Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo