So here's an interesting article

About a woman who left an extremely Hasidic community with her daughter, and who is now trying to regain custody of said daughter.

Interestingly enough, while she (accurately, I'd say) describes her daughter as being kidnapped by her father, her story as she says it says that she (rightly or wrongly - this story is very one-sided) kidnapped her daughter first, not that she seems to realize or acknowledge that. Still, taking the kid away from most of her family, without letting them know? That's kidnapping, even if you have a really good reason. (Both sides seem to think they have a really really good reason. Well, duh, of course they do.)

The comments section is in parts both amusing and enlightening. It's filled with comments from people purporting to know her, saying that she treated her husband oh so badly, and just lazed around the house, and everybody knew. This is supposed to indicate that she's very irresponsible and shouldn't be trusted with a young child, but to me it really indicates that Kiryas Joel - or at least the segment of it that goes online - is filled with backbiting gossips.

I certainly can't presume to speak with any authority on the Jewish view of pointless gossip, but I doubt that it makes for a really happy community. I'd want to leave, anyway.

It's always fun to watch Ana spelling.

It reveals so much, not just about how she speaks, but about how she *thinks* she speaks.

Like this word: Tiyrd. What is that? Tired, of course. I heard her sound it out - the y is consonantal, the r is... syllabic? Is that the word? Whatever, it's off making its own r sound. Because that's how she says the word, of course. (It's roughly how I say the word too, but I'd never write the y in there, even in a word I'd never seen spelled. Why? Because I know that ys don't just pop up in the middle of words, even if you say them.)

Button becomes btn. But apple becomes apul. Same vowel, but sometimes she writes it and sometimes she doesn't. I'm not sure of the logic. I *think* it has to do with the fact that in button that "u" sound (as she'd write it) is at the end of the vowel, but in apple it's more or less at the beginning, and she's been carefully taught that when she says the sound a consonant makes she shouldn't add a gratuitous "uh" at the end. B makes the b sound, not the BUH sound. (This ended one bit of confusion, but - if I'm right - has clearly started a whole OTHER bit of confusion instead.)

Pancake - the word of much pride - is inevitably "pancaek". She knows about silent e, and wants to cram it in there as soon as possible.

She puts a lot of ds and bs where I'd put ts and ps (and she reverses d and b a lot too, just to add to the fun!) because I guess she hears them as voiced when they're between vowels. I don't, and I don't think I say them that way either, but she does.

Edit: She still gets caught up on words like train and tree, by the way. I noticed it well before she started writing and reading, that she processed those words the way they're said - chrain, chree. But she doesn't know how to *write* the ch sound, and it annoys her. I keep telling her it's a t when you write it, but....