words, words, words
I was, maybe, twelve years old when I first noticed the way my mom would order food in a Chinese restaurant. Her voice got clipped, and she'd put on this weird imitation of Cantonese accented English, like "we want wan' ohdah frie' rice, and wan' ohdah soy sauce chikkin." When she'd finish, I'd ask her why she was making fun of our waiter, and she'd respond, "it's just easier for us to understand each other when we use a common accent."
I was always a bit skeptical of that theory. Then, last weekend, while up in Montreal, and ordering a coffee, I realized that I was doing the exact same thing. I still spoke in English, but my vowels would get drawn out, and I caught myself mimicking the Franglish accent of your modern Quebecois. For a moment, I felt self-conscious and wondered how my server was parsing my order and thinking that I was making fun of her.
We all have this tendency to mimic familiar accents and verbal tics. Hints of Tagalog slips into my voice when I talk to my cousins. I get more Canadian while sharing a car with silentq I don't know how often heatray says 'dude' or 'rad' when he's surrounded just by East Coasters, but I imagine that we encourage that between each other. So, I like to believe that this slip was born from the same habit, but I wonder whether it's driven by a universal desire to be understood, to connect with someone else by adapting to their tongue, or if we're all just mimics at heart.
It takes a couple days of immersion before the French dialogue centers activate in my brain. I had no competency on Friday night, and needed to patiently wait until locals switched to English. By Sunday morning, as I had gone out for breakfast with silas7 and our server had asked us "voulez-vous (something, something) boissons?", I was able to order a coffee and orange juice before switching to translate and tell silas7 that she was asking us if we'd like a drink.
Still, it's weird to compare the way my brain works with French against how it operates with Tagalog. I don't need a warmup period before I can listen to a Filipino. I was born into the language, and with spoken Tagalog I understand it with an innateness that I've never held with French. But it's almost impossible for my brain to figure out how to say anything. Like, if I had to say "Good Evening" in another language, I'd give you the French version in a couple of seconds, Spanish a little later, but I'd have to actually look up the Tagalog. Though, if my grandfather said, "Magandang Gabi" I'd instantly know what he said. I don't know why this is.
So, it was an interesting exercise for me when silentq and I watched a Filipino movie called Graceland, and I made a conscious effort to watch the movie without the subtitles. I got most of what they were saying, but I was reminded that my Tagalog vocabulary was still, at heart, that of an eleven year old's. A precocious, overachieving eleven year old perhaps, but still an eleven year old. Still, it was good to know that I still had it. I don't know if I'll ever lose my connection to the language, but if I do, I wonder if I'll greet it as some sentimental crisis or just accept it as a connection that had become dead to me.
I was always a bit skeptical of that theory. Then, last weekend, while up in Montreal, and ordering a coffee, I realized that I was doing the exact same thing. I still spoke in English, but my vowels would get drawn out, and I caught myself mimicking the Franglish accent of your modern Quebecois. For a moment, I felt self-conscious and wondered how my server was parsing my order and thinking that I was making fun of her.
We all have this tendency to mimic familiar accents and verbal tics. Hints of Tagalog slips into my voice when I talk to my cousins. I get more Canadian while sharing a car with silentq I don't know how often heatray says 'dude' or 'rad' when he's surrounded just by East Coasters, but I imagine that we encourage that between each other. So, I like to believe that this slip was born from the same habit, but I wonder whether it's driven by a universal desire to be understood, to connect with someone else by adapting to their tongue, or if we're all just mimics at heart.
It takes a couple days of immersion before the French dialogue centers activate in my brain. I had no competency on Friday night, and needed to patiently wait until locals switched to English. By Sunday morning, as I had gone out for breakfast with silas7 and our server had asked us "voulez-vous (something, something) boissons?", I was able to order a coffee and orange juice before switching to translate and tell silas7 that she was asking us if we'd like a drink.
Still, it's weird to compare the way my brain works with French against how it operates with Tagalog. I don't need a warmup period before I can listen to a Filipino. I was born into the language, and with spoken Tagalog I understand it with an innateness that I've never held with French. But it's almost impossible for my brain to figure out how to say anything. Like, if I had to say "Good Evening" in another language, I'd give you the French version in a couple of seconds, Spanish a little later, but I'd have to actually look up the Tagalog. Though, if my grandfather said, "Magandang Gabi" I'd instantly know what he said. I don't know why this is.
So, it was an interesting exercise for me when silentq and I watched a Filipino movie called Graceland, and I made a conscious effort to watch the movie without the subtitles. I got most of what they were saying, but I was reminded that my Tagalog vocabulary was still, at heart, that of an eleven year old's. A precocious, overachieving eleven year old perhaps, but still an eleven year old. Still, it was good to know that I still had it. I don't know if I'll ever lose my connection to the language, but if I do, I wonder if I'll greet it as some sentimental crisis or just accept it as a connection that had become dead to me.