Aya came home one day and excitedly recited to us the following:

Jugemu-jugemu
Gokōnosurikire
Kaijarisuigyo-no Suigyōmatsu
Unraimatsu Fūraimatsu
Kūnerutokoroni-sumutokoro
Yaburakōjino-burakōji
Paipopaipo-paiponoshūringan
Shūringanno-gūrindai :Gūrindaino-ponpokopīno-ponpokonāno
Chōkyūmeino-chōsuke
寿限無寿限無
五劫の擦り切れ
海砂利水魚の　水行末
雲来末　風来末
食う寝る処に住む処
やぶら小路のぶら小路
パイポパイポ　パイポのシューリンガン
シューリンガンのグーリンダイ
グーリンダイのポンポコピーのポンポコナーの
長久命の長助

I’ve heard of the “Jugemu” being chanted on NHK’s program, “Nihonggo de Asobo,” a children-oriented program that aims to introduce the young viewers to the rich (ok, exotic) world of the Japanese language. The chant is so long and usually spoken very fast, that I find it rather difficult to memorize. Well, maybe except for the “ponpokopino, ponpokonano” bit. It sort of glides on the mouth. The weird thing is that the whole chant doesn’t really make any sense. Aya just memorized the words without paying any attention to the meaning. Does “supercalifragilistic expialidocious” mean anything? But then, it’s not even that long compared to “Jugemu.”

According to the story, Jugemu blah-blah-blah was actually a name given to a boy by a father who consulted a priest about names. The father ended up combining all the names in the list given to him by the priest. By the way, aren’t Thais also famous for using rather long names?

The thing is, Aya has already mastered this seemingly tongue-twister and would happily demonstrate it to anyone who cared to listen. Man, she’s only four years old, and she’s spewing Japanese at us like it was her mother tongue. Well, she actually started talking at a relatively early age. Oh, did I forget to mention that she also speaks Tagalog fluently? We are currently teaching her to speak English, and thanks to her Tita Lai (who takes care of exposing her to American twang), Aya is now also speaking English, with an American twang to boot :). No, she is not confused about these languages at all. Children are much more flexible, and arguably better at learning languages than adults!

On a fun note, in the meantime I’m trying to memorize the whole Jugemu bit so I can show off that I can chant as fast as the kids do. Gambarimasu.