A decade spent living there but it’s not surprising that I never learned that particular word.

Translation is reckoned to be the changing of one language into another. Which is a truth which hides a larger question.

“What does এমনি mean?” I asked, early in my language learning. Again, not a surprising question since it is often heard.

“Emni? It means … ” the person I asked already had Bengali as his second language. “It means … ” but, after several attempts, he gave up. “It’s something you’ll learn to say when it is appropriate in conversations but you’ll probably never know what it means either.”

I mean, how to you translate ;um’ or ‘I mean’ or ‘just’ when they’re more like oral punctuation marks than sounds imbued with meaning?

Not that had much to do with why I was in the old Royal Infirmary. The man had a bladder infection or disease, and needed an operation or didn’t, those points have faded from memory.

Hospitals are the definition of functional. Nothing there by chance, everything fixed in place firmly as an anthill, people moving purposefully: even those keeping still do so for a reason. A doctor to call their name, a nurse to say, “you can go home now.” But below the structured aim of healing, a plethora of cultures thrive. The consultants talking a language you eavesdrop sentences where every word is understood and no meaning whatsoever is made. A patient speaking quietly with their partner of life shared outside the ward, currently put on hold.

A translator asking a patient, “the part of the body where urine is stored,” and being told. Few of us have two first languages although hopefully the number is growing every generation.

Another occasion, the same hospital, the words were more accessible. “Nothing I can do,” is hard as a brick wall to translate. Once spoken, the hit won’t be removed.

A plethora of cultures. A man holding a man’s hand as rare in Edinburgh as it was frequent in rural Bangladesh when I lived there. “The doctor says … ” I went and sat beside the man. Took his hand.

Text and context. No translators needed soon, AI will do the job. Know the difference between তলপেট and মূত্রাশয়, tolpet and mutrashoy.

But we’ll have to hold our own hand when trying to grasp the impossible.