languages, travel and the UN
News from Colombia: abortion has been decriminalized! Also, there is a strong wind warning. I like to try read the newspapers of the place where i go before i go there, if i can. Now i can stumble my way through the Spanish, a big chunk of journalism has opened up that was out of my reach before.
In other multilingual news, i watched the emergency UN Security Council meeting live last night on YouTube. It was half-depressing and half-hilarious to see that the YouTube live chat was full of trolls meming their dumb investments and ultra-nationalist yahoos. Crammed in between was a stream of pithy, irreverent, low-brow commentary on the Very Serious Topic At Hand. One thing most of YouTube could agree on was that the representative of Kenya ("Wakenya") stole the show. Sadly if you watch cable news or even read the newspaper headlines, you're probably going to miss it, but Kenya did have one of the most emotional and bold speeches of anyone, tying the experience of the Ukrainian people under Russia to its own tragic, imperialist history. Way to put a guilt trip on the former colonial powers while still taking a swipe at one of the world's biggest bullies today.
It was also telling that China, and - surprisingly - India did a great big massive fence sit. "Many sides, many sides." "We urge restraint on all sides." Fucking flop artists. I see you.
Meanwhile Russia decided to invent its own fantasy land where actually Ukraine has been the aggressor for the past 8 years, and Russia is the only country in the world looking out for the poor, oppressed people of Ukraine, and they simply had no choice but to go in to aid the downtrodden freedom fighters who want nothing more than to follow South Ossetia and Abkhazia in becoming "independent" states recognized by nobody except mother Russia. FFS.
I mean, i know there's always different perspectives on a situation, but there's a point where the bullshit is spread just way too thick. Listening to the Russian representative speak was like consuming Chinese media, where literally every single word is complete opposite-land propaganda. It's such utter, thorough nonsense that it's incredible these clowns can sit there and say it with a straight face.
Which gets me to the point of this post. I always had a fantasy of working at the UN someday. Maybe as a translator? As a something! As much as i flirt with the idea of being a green, no borders, kein mensch ist illegal veganarchist... In reality i still place a lot of faith and trust in international institutions like the UN and the EU. More than in any other level of government, because they are the structures that are supposed to lead us to the world that i want to see - a world where all the people of Earth work together, with a framework of shared values, basic and essential views of human rights, uncorrupted by tyrants and tycoons. Yes, it's a dream, but it's my dream, it's a dream i believe in, and it's something that matters more to me than any local politics.
I guess that means i'm just a dumb ol' hippie, hoping for world peace.
Except maybe a bit more like the superhero/villain Peacemaker, who kinda accepts that sometimes to get peace we need to kick some fucking fascists in the balls.
Anyway, i was incredibly impressed by the work of the translator(s?) during the Security Council meeting. Not only by their ability to translate rapidly and in real-time what the representatives were saying, but also the ability to do it with such nonchalance. Like, despite the outrageous nonsense the Russian representative was spewing, the English translator did a respectable job relaying the message without throwing his hands in the air and saying "fuck this shit". Even if i was fluent in multiple languages, i don't know if i'd be able to keep my cool in a UN-like environment.
Also, another thing that i notice about the way i like to learn and speak languages, is that i am more interested in learning to speak local dialects than whatever the "high" or "formal" version of the language is.
For instance, in Germany, i lived in Berlin, where they speak with a lazier version of German than the one you learn in school and hear on the evening news. The "g" is not pronounced like the "g" in "gestapo", it's pronounced like the "j" in "ja". The "ch" is not pronounced like the "ch" in "loch", it's prounced like the "ck" in "icky". The ends and sometimes middle of words get dropped. I found myself slipping into that accent a lot, even though it was rarely used in the formal workplace or even amongst the hundreds of thousands of migrants to the city, just because it felt more comfortable and cozy.
In China, in Shenzhen, there was a sort of local accent to the street Putonghua that was probably influenced by the city's strange state of being an artificial Mandarin island in a sea of Cantonese. Things like occasionally using Cantonese words (唔 vs 不 for "not", 靚仔 vs 帥哥 for "pretty boy"/young man) was one aspect, but also sometimes the pronunciation got lazy too. Like sometimes using Cantonese "gai" instead of "ji" for 鷄 (chicken), and other hard-g substitutions. Or pronouncing words that formally should start with an "l" sound with an "n" sound instead, which is i think a bit more common in Sichuan. Or "m" instead of "n" to finish off words like 三 (three) - that's another one from Cantonese. Straight outta Guangdong: "s" instead of "sh". In a lot of cases using the appropriate tone meant more than enunciating the formal pronunciation. And i preferred to speak that way, even at work when it made my colleagues roll their eyes, i guess because it sounded low class or uneducated.
Similarly, when i visited Andalucía, i discovered a version of Spanish that sounded way less stick-up-the-ass than what you learn in school. Pretty much all the "s" and "d" sounds just disappear into thin air. There didn't seem to be as much of the rolling "r" sound that you often hear Mexican Americans shitting on non-native speakers for failing to pronounce correctly. Interestingly, when i got to Florida i discovered they speak lazy Spanish there too. Turns out that style got exported to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and - yes - Panama. It's known over here as Caribbean Spanish. I'm very curious to discover if they also speak this way on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, or if they use the more rigid pronunciation like Mexico or Madrid.
I wonder sometimes if i enjoy the colloquial versions of a language more than the formal versions because i like to fit in with whatever community i am currently visiting, or if there is some kind of over-arching preference in my speaking style that favors less clear enunciation. Like, do i just have a lazy tongue? I know that i can pronounce the rolling "r", but i don't want to because it seems like too much effort. I didn't like pronouncing that stick-up-the-ass Beijing 兒 "arrrr" sound either. But do i not like it because it costs me more effort to create the sound, or do i not like it because of the social/class association?
It's weird because in English, i don't think i speak a particularly "low class" version of the language. In some countries they think i speak posh because i have a British pronunciation for a few words. On the other hand, i consciously use American English spelling because it's less letters to type and vaguely less inconsistent. I do tend to adopt the vocal tics of whatever country i am in, though. Like "eh" in Canada and "yeah nah" in Australia and dropped "t" in the UK and so on. Hmm.
Anywho, watching the UN last night made me think about all this stuff again. I love languages and dialects and accents. I love learning about the little differences in the way people speak and eat and think and behave around the world. I love finding commonalities, sometimes across entirely different languages and continents, the things that people do the same. I love all that stuff. Travel, culture, language, international politics, globalization... this stuff is the stuff i wish i could somehow be building a career out of. I know the ship has sailed. I'm too old. And i'm not skilled enough in anything other than computers to do anything other than that as a serious job. But i still like to fantasize about it.
Time to pick up my laundry and pack up my bags. I fly out at sunset.
In other multilingual news, i watched the emergency UN Security Council meeting live last night on YouTube. It was half-depressing and half-hilarious to see that the YouTube live chat was full of trolls meming their dumb investments and ultra-nationalist yahoos. Crammed in between was a stream of pithy, irreverent, low-brow commentary on the Very Serious Topic At Hand. One thing most of YouTube could agree on was that the representative of Kenya ("Wakenya") stole the show. Sadly if you watch cable news or even read the newspaper headlines, you're probably going to miss it, but Kenya did have one of the most emotional and bold speeches of anyone, tying the experience of the Ukrainian people under Russia to its own tragic, imperialist history. Way to put a guilt trip on the former colonial powers while still taking a swipe at one of the world's biggest bullies today.
It was also telling that China, and - surprisingly - India did a great big massive fence sit. "Many sides, many sides." "We urge restraint on all sides." Fucking flop artists. I see you.
Meanwhile Russia decided to invent its own fantasy land where actually Ukraine has been the aggressor for the past 8 years, and Russia is the only country in the world looking out for the poor, oppressed people of Ukraine, and they simply had no choice but to go in to aid the downtrodden freedom fighters who want nothing more than to follow South Ossetia and Abkhazia in becoming "independent" states recognized by nobody except mother Russia. FFS.
I mean, i know there's always different perspectives on a situation, but there's a point where the bullshit is spread just way too thick. Listening to the Russian representative speak was like consuming Chinese media, where literally every single word is complete opposite-land propaganda. It's such utter, thorough nonsense that it's incredible these clowns can sit there and say it with a straight face.
Which gets me to the point of this post. I always had a fantasy of working at the UN someday. Maybe as a translator? As a something! As much as i flirt with the idea of being a green, no borders, kein mensch ist illegal veganarchist... In reality i still place a lot of faith and trust in international institutions like the UN and the EU. More than in any other level of government, because they are the structures that are supposed to lead us to the world that i want to see - a world where all the people of Earth work together, with a framework of shared values, basic and essential views of human rights, uncorrupted by tyrants and tycoons. Yes, it's a dream, but it's my dream, it's a dream i believe in, and it's something that matters more to me than any local politics.
I guess that means i'm just a dumb ol' hippie, hoping for world peace.
Except maybe a bit more like the superhero/villain Peacemaker, who kinda accepts that sometimes to get peace we need to kick some fucking fascists in the balls.
Anyway, i was incredibly impressed by the work of the translator(s?) during the Security Council meeting. Not only by their ability to translate rapidly and in real-time what the representatives were saying, but also the ability to do it with such nonchalance. Like, despite the outrageous nonsense the Russian representative was spewing, the English translator did a respectable job relaying the message without throwing his hands in the air and saying "fuck this shit". Even if i was fluent in multiple languages, i don't know if i'd be able to keep my cool in a UN-like environment.
Also, another thing that i notice about the way i like to learn and speak languages, is that i am more interested in learning to speak local dialects than whatever the "high" or "formal" version of the language is.
For instance, in Germany, i lived in Berlin, where they speak with a lazier version of German than the one you learn in school and hear on the evening news. The "g" is not pronounced like the "g" in "gestapo", it's pronounced like the "j" in "ja". The "ch" is not pronounced like the "ch" in "loch", it's prounced like the "ck" in "icky". The ends and sometimes middle of words get dropped. I found myself slipping into that accent a lot, even though it was rarely used in the formal workplace or even amongst the hundreds of thousands of migrants to the city, just because it felt more comfortable and cozy.
In China, in Shenzhen, there was a sort of local accent to the street Putonghua that was probably influenced by the city's strange state of being an artificial Mandarin island in a sea of Cantonese. Things like occasionally using Cantonese words (唔 vs 不 for "not", 靚仔 vs 帥哥 for "pretty boy"/young man) was one aspect, but also sometimes the pronunciation got lazy too. Like sometimes using Cantonese "gai" instead of "ji" for 鷄 (chicken), and other hard-g substitutions. Or pronouncing words that formally should start with an "l" sound with an "n" sound instead, which is i think a bit more common in Sichuan. Or "m" instead of "n" to finish off words like 三 (three) - that's another one from Cantonese. Straight outta Guangdong: "s" instead of "sh". In a lot of cases using the appropriate tone meant more than enunciating the formal pronunciation. And i preferred to speak that way, even at work when it made my colleagues roll their eyes, i guess because it sounded low class or uneducated.
Similarly, when i visited Andalucía, i discovered a version of Spanish that sounded way less stick-up-the-ass than what you learn in school. Pretty much all the "s" and "d" sounds just disappear into thin air. There didn't seem to be as much of the rolling "r" sound that you often hear Mexican Americans shitting on non-native speakers for failing to pronounce correctly. Interestingly, when i got to Florida i discovered they speak lazy Spanish there too. Turns out that style got exported to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and - yes - Panama. It's known over here as Caribbean Spanish. I'm very curious to discover if they also speak this way on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, or if they use the more rigid pronunciation like Mexico or Madrid.
I wonder sometimes if i enjoy the colloquial versions of a language more than the formal versions because i like to fit in with whatever community i am currently visiting, or if there is some kind of over-arching preference in my speaking style that favors less clear enunciation. Like, do i just have a lazy tongue? I know that i can pronounce the rolling "r", but i don't want to because it seems like too much effort. I didn't like pronouncing that stick-up-the-ass Beijing 兒 "arrrr" sound either. But do i not like it because it costs me more effort to create the sound, or do i not like it because of the social/class association?
It's weird because in English, i don't think i speak a particularly "low class" version of the language. In some countries they think i speak posh because i have a British pronunciation for a few words. On the other hand, i consciously use American English spelling because it's less letters to type and vaguely less inconsistent. I do tend to adopt the vocal tics of whatever country i am in, though. Like "eh" in Canada and "yeah nah" in Australia and dropped "t" in the UK and so on. Hmm.
Anywho, watching the UN last night made me think about all this stuff again. I love languages and dialects and accents. I love learning about the little differences in the way people speak and eat and think and behave around the world. I love finding commonalities, sometimes across entirely different languages and continents, the things that people do the same. I love all that stuff. Travel, culture, language, international politics, globalization... this stuff is the stuff i wish i could somehow be building a career out of. I know the ship has sailed. I'm too old. And i'm not skilled enough in anything other than computers to do anything other than that as a serious job. But i still like to fantasize about it.
Time to pick up my laundry and pack up my bags. I fly out at sunset.