Aardvaarks

Aardvaarks

Double-A in English ? That can’t be right.
What are we to do with this alpha-oversight ?
A whiff of the exotic, though who knows from which address ?
So how do we pronounce it ? I guess we’ll have to guess.
It looks a bit Old-Testament, like Balaam the Canaanite,
Though surely ancient Hebrews had a diff’rent way to write ?
Diff’rent letter-forms, and not-a vowel included –
Whoever chose the spellings in the Roman was deluded !
With a single-A long and a double-A short,
Spelling things in English shouldn’t be a tricky sport…
Our batteries are flat and our gearboxes stall –
We need to gain sobriety, but who can we call ?

Infact, the double A in Hebrew loaners are probably a relic of a slight ‘h’ sound between them, splitting them into two separate syllables.  The Greeks, when translating the Bible, had little use for mid-word H’s, and eventually the sounds merged (though not the letters because as everyone knows spelling must remain fossilised).  See also Aaron.

And yes, I am aware that Aardvaark is usually spelled with only three A’s, and I’ve decided I don’t give a toss.  Maybe Afrikaans pronounces ‘aar’ and ‘ar’ differently, but nobody in English does (hence the difference (and lack of difference) between Haarlem and Harlem).  So if you are happy being silly in the front half, then I see no reason to get serious with the aarse-end.