Once Upon a Time There Was a Word

I have recently rediscovered my passion for linguistics. It has a lot to do with my becoming a topic editor at the Language Study topic at Suite101. It feels like riding a bike after having slept for 20 years. Or drinking that specific syrup you were used to as a kid, because it was the only one that existed; then it disappeared and you can only remember it tasted like heaven. (Everyone in/from Romania, remember BemBem?)*
As I was browsing through a fairly big and mostly unsorted mass of articles, some outdated, some beside the point, and some very interesting and informative, I learnt to count to ten in Japanese, picked up some French vocabulary and managed to squeeze in some Spanish grammar. I didn't even try to understand the Arabic lesson.
Wandering in this land of multilingualism was like browsing through a magical phonebook which doesn't only list numbers and addresses, but particularities like "John Smith likes to fish and his wife can never understand that" or "Jane Smith had her first tooth fall out when she was five and next day she met the Tooth Fairy". Except the stories here are not about people, but about words. And words, I must admit, can sometimes be much more interesting than people. Sometimes. But the stories told by words are usually far more interesting than those told by people.
This entire experience inspired me enough to finish my article about words of Hungarian origin that have ended up in English. And, of course, the stories they tell. When I shared this article with my friend from Lithuania, he told me another such story, that I had not known before. Perhaps because I don't know the first thing about Lithuanian language or culture or history. Which is not something to brag about and I should do something about it.
Antanas told me that the Lithuanian name for the German nation is vokietis. This term was born in Medieval times when German crusaders invaded the land. Vo is an interjection like look! or hey!, and kietas means hard/solid/tough  - a reference to the the heavy armour of the knights. Now tell me if that does not make you go Wow! If it doesn't, it means you're a perfectly normal human being, not (yet?) spirited away by languages and words. If it does, you're my kind of wacko!
On a final note, I must mention that I'm leaving for Croatia tomorrow. I wonder how many Croatian words I'll manage to pick up. And how many of those will reveal their story to me. But if I find a story, I'll be sure to share it with you.
*I have no idea if the product from the Bem Bem link is the real thing or not. It may or may not be. I linked it there only in order to remind you of Bem Bem.

Introduction and Explanation of the Title

The name of the blog needs explanation, I feel. Unless I explain it, it might sound like something completely blue-sky, such as Tingling Pink Fluffy Cows or Funny Little Prickly Paradise and Its Blurbs and other titles which are desperately trying to be creative but are completely missing any point they can possibly have.

Nowhere, in the Middle of Everything is a reference to my location, both geographically and socially.

If I consider my position on the planet I can safely say that I'm hidden in an obscure little corner. Yes, a globe can have obscure little corners. Thousands of years of civilization have taught us that much. I mean, from this angle, it appears that the busiest, and therefore, the most important, places on the globe are the Americas and Western Europe. Recently, Asia is starting to pop up more and more. Every other part of the world just exists and lies there to keep the Earth from shifting off its course. Most people living in the 'important' areas probably don't even know where such little countries are. And those who do, will associate the country with tiny elements they remember about it. What do you think of when you hear of Romania? If you're American you're likely to say: Dracula! Western Europeans will say: Ceaușescu! or orphanages! The Turkish will always mention Hagi, maybe Lucescu.* And I have to somehow hide the fact that none of these things or people really define me in any way. First of all, because this is not what Romania is all about, and secondly, because Romania is not really what I am all about. Because I'm not even Romanian. I'll expand on that some other time.
The geo-political fact of is that if you're in Romania, you're nowhere. And still, it is a curious corner of 'nowhere', because this place has got some outstanding features. If only there were somebody to make good use of it, this country could be a tourist's paradise. The combination of mountains, seaside, plains, rivers, lakes and you name it is such that you can find almost anything you're looking for. Also, the location of the country is such that it would normally be an ideal place to spend a night or a day (or a week) when travelling from, say, Western Europe to, say, Asia. If only people weren't afraid to get mugged/robbed/raped/sold or just simply disappointed by conditions here. Here, nowhere. In the middle of everything. Does that make sense?

And then there's me in the world, completely regardless of the country I'm stuck in. I am very young, I have a bachelor's degree (which means absolutely nothing, because everybody has one or several nowadays). I have absolutely nothing to brag about in any field. I am nowhere. And then again, the busy, quickly moving world of international writing and media buzzes under my fingertips as I'm typing this.  My other open windows are Facebook, Twitter and Suite101. Neither of these really exists without any of the others, neither would this blog exist without the people I met and the writing experience I got from all these places. And, I have to flatter myself with the thought, they wouldn't be the same without me either. So here I am, again: nowhere, in the middle of everything.

And I promise my future posts will be shorter. And will make more sense.

*No offense is meant by these presumptions. It is an exaggeration for the sake of example. I am perfectly aware that many people are likely to know more about Romania, or about Dracula for that matter.