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Certain Key Phrases

Kerry recently attended a briefing for Marines who will be deploying to Afghanistan. A small booklet was handed out containing handy phrases they might need to know in case they need to interact with the local populace. Included are the pronunciations in Pashtu for common sentences. The first page includes:

Do not move or the Marines will kill you.
A Marine will come to you and search you.
Do not move unless told to do so.
If you advance further, the Marines will kill you.
Stay away from the Marines.
If you advance any closer, we will be forced to use deadly force.
Marines will kill anyone who is a threat to us.

And at the bottom of the page, they learn to say:

The Marines are here to help you.

Comments

  1. MichelleDecember 20, 2011 at 7:38 AM

    Nice. Such friendly people, these Marines! Actually, it's somewhat refreshing that one branch of the military isn't afraid to state their purpose with no ambiguity.

    Teaching the kids Latin, and it greatly amuses me the words chosen for the lessons. Latin, of course, is used primarily in two ways: religion and history (Bible and things like Julius Caesar's diaries). So you learn verbs like love, pray, praise and nouns like God, Christ, and Lord. And then you learn verbs like occupy, conquer, kill and nouns like commander, sword, and rampart. Fritz and I just read the account of David and Goliath which focused on "glory to God" and "Goliath falling on his face, dead." I barely know how to say things like eat, drink and sleep or names of things like clothing. Thinking back to what I learned in high school when I took German and it focused on everyday conversations. Learn Latin, and we can only talk about invading armies or persecuting Christians.

    Learn Pashtu and you can only talk about the perils of being in the vicinity of Marines!

    ReplyDelete

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