The multilingual brain – thinking thoughts in several languages

And a crucial no-vote

Jun 14, 2026

*links to all my four different newsletters and my notes at the end*

I know my birds and my plants. I know them in German. German is a very literal language.

Enter English with kestrel.

That’s Turmfalke in German. You might recognize the word “Falke” as falcon and “Turm” is tower. In German (and other languages) we look at where a bird lives and that becomes its name.

So that bird is a tower falcon.

All that goes on in my brain when trying to figure out what that bird is called in English. A more recent example – Mehlschwalbe, literally flour swallow (apparently because it looks like it sat in flour and then flew off).

Yes, swallows exist in English, but only for the barn swallow (out of the four I checked). All the others we have in Switzerland are martins in English. In this case it’s the house martin. I was sitting there thinking “I know it’s a name” but couldn’t remember which.

Language is hardly ever as easy as a literal translation. The multilingual brain has to be agile. We’re not just dealing with different vocabulary; we’re dealing with entirely different systems.

Sometimes English follows French, sometimes it remembers its Germanic routes, sometimes words get borrowed twice and hold different meaning, sometimes it’s just very random.

Sometimes my brain opens the wrong drawer and out comes the wrong word. Could be a false friend, could be my brain being tired, could be that all the languages I know have one word for those cute birds that are called house martin instead of house swallow.

And sometimes my brain wastes a whole lot of time when I read the same sign in three different languages before I realize at the fourth that I’ve read all that before.

My friends in Luxembourg said they could relate. I bet many others can as well.

Not sure why this is on my mind. I think those house martins triggered it. There are so many of them right across the street from the bus terminal at the station in Aarau. They seem to love that old building. It used to be the main post office. That’s still in there now, but the rest of the building is used by the police.

Maybe the house martins are trained spies and tag you by pooping on your head.

Not sure how to get from that to the FIFA World Cup… I mean I have a few suggestions on whose head they could poop on, but that’s about it.

The greatest tournament ever?

Hang on while I laugh. If you fell for this, you really only have yourself to blame. Anybody who paid attention knows that FIFA lies and that 47 lies should also come as no surprise.

Having an additional 16 nations join the world cup pretty randomly and then refusing entry to fans, you couldn’t make this up. You really couldn’t.

I already didn’t watch the world cup in 2022 because Qatar?! Who came up with that idea.

Playing football in the desert sounds pretty perfect, doesn’t it? Plus, too much corruption.

That brings me to a conversation I overheard the other day. The question was “Why are all the places we’ve been to in Switzerland on a river and/or lake?”

Well, that’s what we did in pre-industrial times. You need water to survive. Even in the desert people lived where there was water available. Living in the desert with no natural water and AC is a modern invention. And Qatar hosting a world cup was just insane.

Most towns in Switzerland were established well before the Industrialization. Water was needed for life. One of the most significant rivers in Switzerland in that respect is the Aare – “my river”. But I also grew up in a valley that had two rivers running down it (Uerke and Suhre).

People lived and farmed where there were natural resources. Something we’ve somehow lost the concept of. We have another heatwave coming. For me that means keeping my windows open at night and then closing everything down during the day.

To cool off I go for a walk in the forest, or I go out early in the morning or after sunset.

So far we’ve been able to adapt to the more intense heat, but I’m not sure how much longer that will be possible. Heatwaves used to be one-offs. Now they happen every year and several times a year.

Another reason to be glad that in my canton people decided that everybody should live no more than a 15-minute walk from the nearest forest. That’s crucial when the heat hits.

Living with nature

We have an article in our Federal Constitution that says the government has to promote a system of footpaths, hiking and cycle routes.

This led to us having the densest hiking system in the world. Small country with 65,000 km of established and maintained hiking trails. That’s pretty decent.

There are also rules about the % of trails that can be paved to be considered hiking routes. Sometimes you have to walk along a paved road, but that should be and usually is the exception.

So, what we’re voting on matters. Especially if it concerns changes to the Constitution.

Today is voting Sunday. It is the vote on the population cap. We’re expecting first results at around 1 PM. So, I’m gonna go for a walk now and then publish this when we have the results.

… picture me walking in this forest … alone - peaceful.

As I mentioned in a note when I came home, I walked for 3h 30 minutes … that wasn’t planned.

After saying I’d go for a walk I decided to walk to the apartment where I lived until I was 5½. I could have walked there in about one hour and then taken the train back.

Somehow, I just kept walking. Down to the river. Across the bridge – then back across because the path was closed on the other side. Then along the river Aare to the river that runs by my building. And then I walked almost home.

It was a bit more in the sun than anticipated because I couldn’t walk in the forest on the other side of the river. So, I took a bus to Aarau and another bus home.

No need to prove anything to anybody. Know your limits and such.

Anyway, about that crucial vote today. My town voted no, my county/district voted no, but my canton voted yes. Unsurprisingly.

Luckily, my no vote counts towards the total of votes cast across Switzerland and the initiative was defeated by almost 55 to 45 %. They would have needed a “double majority” - the majority of cantons plus the majority of people to say “yes” for that population cap to be added to the constitution.

They missed both.

That double majority also means that every vote counts. Even if your canton turns green, your “no” vote still matters.

That’s a bit of a safety net so cantons with large populations can’t push stuff through and as it was today, more conservative areas/cantons can’t push initiatives through on their own either. As I screen shot this, they are only still counting in Zurich.

It’s 5.30 PM on polling day. That’s how we roll. We get results fast. It was already clear at around 12.30 PM, but I was out walking and swearing because it was hot.

I’m super relieved.

And now I’m going to my ex’s dad’s grave – he died 6 years ago today. June is a crappy month in terms of family deaths. And somehow there are a ton of birthdays too.

Emotionally confusing times.

Hope you’re all well. Sunday hugs.

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