Lethargic Man (anag.)

I've been invited to be a speaker again at the next Newcastle Day Limmud. Now all I have to do is think of something to talk about.

Hmm... I gave a dvar Torah at Assif yesterday about my experiences translating the Friday night siddur. Now all I have to do is find another forty minutes of material and I'll have a full talk. :-S

At the Limmud volunteers meeting this afternoon (in the last fifteen minutes of which, bizarrely, we had Deborah Lipstadt (of all people) talking about why she thought Limmud was so good), they said if we had ideas for programme items to let them know. I decided to dig out my old suggestion for a session on Semitic languages, which my father suggested I do at the next Newcastle Day Limmud. I was rather ambivalent at the time, as all my knowledge is rather secondhand; if there were questions I might not be able to field them. Also, I was concerned I might not have enough material to cover the hour and more a Limmud session lasts.

However, in the course of updating my proposal, I found myself getting all fired up about it, and it was obvious that the person to talk about the specific chain of associations that I find interesting was me. So, after sending my proposal off to Limmud Conference, I sent it off a second time to my father, volunteering myself for the Newcastle Day Limmud.

Here's the programme book-style blurb I came up with for it:

A fun ramble through the Semitic languages

As Jews, we tend to focus on Hebrew and Aramaic, but in fact there are plenty of other words and names from related languages someone with a modicum of Hebrew could recognise if they only knew how and where to look. Join me on a fun ramble through the Semitic languages, taking in such features as Carthage's finest hero, the church-burning Jewish queen of Ethiopia, and why for Muslims, Unitarianism isn't about tea and biscuits.

How's that sound to you? Would you be interested in attending such a session?