Unlike Casablanca and Rabat, English speaking people are very hard to find in Fes. So I mostly end up communicating lavishly with sign language with mediocre results. The mother tongue of most people in this Arab-Berber country is Arabic. My knowledge in Arabic limited to a few phrases I picked up from religious prayers and songs. I of course know Assalamu Alaikum, Va Alaikum Usalam and Gafoor Ka Dosth. I mess up even with those. So I turned to French. Most people in cities speak some French, thanks to pre-independence colonial and post-independence capitalist influences from France. I was excited to learn that if I spend some time pondering over the sign boards and menu cards, I understand approximately what they meant. So French it is, I thought. But soon I realised that let alone speaking it in day-to-day life, handling basic French is confusing as hell. For example French for water is eau pronounced somewhat like oh. If you want some water and tell the waiter oh he will blink at you, because you need to say loh (leau=the water) or de leau for some water. There is more trouble with some. French has masculine words and feminine words and usage of some varies for those. Its du cafe (masculine) for some coffee and de la glace (feminine) for some ice cream. If you think the masculine-feminine division is easy from my coffee-and-ice cream example, it is not. Orange juice is a male and lemon juice is a female. Deal with it.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:40:10 +0000
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