The Perils of Back-Formation, or, Nations You Will Not Find On Any Map : A Humourous Digression

Bahamia
Barbadia
Belgia
Cameroonia
Canadia
Chiléa
Congol
Europea
Ghanaia
Haitia
Hungaria
Ivoiria
Jordania
Laotia
Palastinia
Panamania
Peruvia
Togol
Turkland
Ukrainia

Omnia Eritrea in novem ethnicos globos divisa est

I don't ordinarily find myself at the Lawrence stop in the morning--in fact, I think I've caught the train north from there only a couple times ever. But the only legal, unmetered parking places that could take Dad's humongous truck were on the block just north of it and he confessed to me that he wouldn't be able to find it again without my help. (This despite the fact that he parked it on the same stretch the previous night.) Thank god I didn't inherit his sense of direction!

In any case, that's how I found myself outside my local Catholic church at about 8 o'clock in the morning. Mass was in progress and the doors were open, so I crept up to the door to sneak a peek inside. Attractive enough, though not especially ornate. (We drove past St. Ben's a couple of times over the weekend and I remember thinking If I were a successful Catholic businessman, this would have to be my parish. St. Ben's or St. Michael's the Archangel; nothing lesser.)

The congregation was, as was to be expected, mostly elderly. The first thing I noticed about the language was that I didn't understand it. This surprised me, because I thought that--despite the multilingualness of the congregation--daily mass was in English. Plenty of parishes in Chicago have Sunday masses in Spanish and English; mine has them also in Laotian and Eritrean, at least according to the sign out front. (The official Archdiocesan site drops Eritrean but lists Vietnamese.) Then I heard a prayer in English and wondered if the service wasn't actually bilingual.

It was only when telling bunj and e. about the place that I realised Eritrean isn't a language, only a nationality. I imagine they mean Tigrinya, a Semitic variety which is the mother tongue of about half the population, but there's an outside chance it could be Ge'ez, the language of the Eritrean Orthodox Church. I guess the only way to find out is to show up sometime.