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HA HA HUM

In the chorus of one of my favorite songs are three throat-clearing sounds—

sometimes depicted as Ha Ha Hum

on lyrics websites such as azlyrics.com, lyricstime.com, and anysonglyrics.com.

A sound we make when we talk with the mouths of Jews.

Channukah, l’chaim, chutzpah.

Voiceless fricative.

Russians have a letter for it. In block, an x, in Cyrillic, two c’s back to back.

In the words, good, chorrosho, and bad, plocho.

They have other letters I love, for sh, tss, sht, szh, yoo.

The sound Kanye makes—it’s not unlike the French r.

How my name falls back into the mouth like it’s collapsing.

Sa-cha.

In Russian, the r would roll, as when my great-grandmother said her name,

as when my great-grandfather called to her.

My name means princess in Hebrew.

Kanye’s means the only one in Swahili.

A language once written in Arabic script, now written with letters like ours.

Switched in the 1800’s. Trying for sounds like nz and nd, to begin words.

The mouths we speak with are hidden by our other mouths.