Yiddish is the old form of German that was spoken in the ghettoes. I speak German, but when I learned Afrikaans I was able to converse in Yiddish. So it is not that difficult a language.

What makes Yiddish seem so alien is that it is written in Hebrew script.

Heiroglyphics disappeared after Christianity took over Egypt because it was considered unholy. When Islam took over a country, the language had to be written in Arabic script. The script was holy to Christians, Muslems and Jews.

When the conquistadores took over all the old picture writings were burned. There are only eight left.

When the Muslems took over Iran all the old Zoroastrian script was burned. When Christianity took over Northern Europe all the old runic script was burned.

And I am the only person who mentions it.

When I was young, the idea that Leif Ericson had come to America was officially “discredited.” That was when J. Edgar Hoover said the Mafia was a myth, just as every professor now agrees that race is a myth.

Something else that was agreed on was that the barbarians outside Rome only wrote stuff on rocks. Norsemen and Germans were illiterate, everybody said, except for writings on rock.

I was all of thirteen when I first heard this, and what immediately occurred to me was all those kids who would later write on rocks LEARNING to write on rocks. There has never been a single primer found on those rocks the Norsemen wrote on. Apparently they just went straight from illiteracy to chiseling complex writings on rocks.

If all the papers were burned in 1900, all we would find today would be chiselling on the Jefferson Memorial and tombstones. Would we really be stupid enough to think the people in 1900 were illiterate except for a few engravings on rock?

Yes.