Say what? by Patricia A. Smith When you spend enough time in a foreign country, you begin to realize that even if you start to understand or learn how to communicate in a new language, this can eventually breed one thing and one thing only: trouble. In my case, it breeds humor and a blog post, so I consider this a bonus. This trouble (and fodder) has evolved in a couple of countries. Hell, it even happened while spending several months in other states or on an island where the official language was English. Just because we have the ability to use the same words, they don’t necessarily mean the same thing. And the pronunciation thing is better left for another time. I don’t trust anyone who pronounces it “INsurance.” While in Hungary last month, I learned that my native tongue had evolved considerably since my last visit 20 years prior. “Hello” means two things in Hungarian. Like most everywhere else where this word is used, it’s what you say when you answer the phone. What is kind of bizarre however is that in Hungary it’s also what you say (three times) when you are finished with the conversation. This is a big improvement over the term, “See ya,” which was all the rage two decades ago. In retrospect, I suppose they used the term to state the obvious. It was what people said to others only when they entered a room and not when they were leaving. It’s a vast improvement over their lasting mispronunciation of the Fab Four, who Hungarians still refer to as “The Beet Lees.” Go figure. When you deal with an underdeveloped nation and try to describe something for which the natives have absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever, you’re in for something else. I recall spending an afternoon in St. Kitts trying to describe amusement parks to a friend and explain what a rollercoaster is. “It’s a really fast machine with box-like cars attached to one another that go up and down hills, causing you to scream and laugh (or lose your lunch) and the whole thing is over in about 90 seconds, but you wait in line for more than an hour to have the experience.” “See ya,” he said.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 16:11:53 +0000
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