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 Aya…
The people lost an unimportant word…
For my 79th birthday my family gave me the Amazon’s Kindle. It’s an electronic
book that affords instant downloads of books and a new marvelous way of reading
on a clear screen with your choice of font size. Large font sizes are especially
keen to those of us approaching the age of octogenarian.
You can order a book…on line without an
Internet provider…and Amazon downloads the book with great speed. I am so in
need of this new electronic book. In the past years my eyesight has been
erratic. Since the removal of my cataracts, I can watch television clearly
without eyeglasses…but reading has been a chore. I joined many internet clubs to
trade audio books and used this as a way to enjoy fiction and my favorite
subject, history (which was the most expensive to purchase).
So this new Kindle has opened many doors to me…The first book I ordered was John
Adams by David McCullough for one third the cost, and I am thoroughly enjoying
this book. In one of the chapters there is a dissertation on local
colloquialisms used by the Massachusetts settlers and this opened a memory page
I had forgotten…the use of the word aya. My mother, my aunt, my uncle…all the
old relatives used aya constantly…
If you were in a conversation with someone and
wanted to acknowledge a point made, today you might say yes or ah-huh. My
ancestors said aya. If you thought a point was amazing, you might say really! My
ancestors said aya? It’s truly astounding how my current family has lost use of
this word completely…I guess we did not pass it on.
But I think we became a global family…we
didn’t go back to my hometown, settle in and pick up the old ways. The use of
aya was to me more of a local dialect…not for repetition. And so it happened
that none of my family brought the word with them when they set out on their
journey to brighten the world.
Comments
One Response
to “AYA …”
charlotte says:
October 11, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Hey Dad so glad you like your gift. I had
a great time with you. love always
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