This Verbal Class Distinction, By Now Should Be Antique

Yes, I have watched My Fair Lady way too many times.

Languages are difficult. At ALA, I frequently find myself surrounded by tens of languages, none of which I understand. This is relatively new to me; my greatest experience in linguistic disorientation prior to ALA was when I left the comfort of my American upbringing to attend a British private school in 1999. Five weeks in a spiraling hamster ball would have left me feeling more grounded than that one day of scrumhalves, jammy dodgers, toad in the hole, flapjacks, pelican crossings, and plimsolls. Even definitions made no sense; when I asked what "toad in the hole" was, someone replied that it was “a banger, stuck in mash, all in a Yorkshire pudding.” I thought people were speaking to me in some sort of code.

The point is, that was only one day, and I’ve stayed in places that speak English and Mandarin for 98% of my life. On the other hand, many days at ALA are like living in the enigma machine. I found myself using Google Translate a lot with Boubacar during the first week, but then it told me that “tu puisses” means “thou mayest”, and I stopped. I don’t want my roommate to sound like he lives in a Dickens novel.



Some of my confusion was to be expected; I cannot understand Arabic or Bambara because I did not grow up in Morocco or Mali. I also didn’t spend my entire childhood flicking my soft palate with my tongue or taking mouth supplements, which is I cannot click louder than pneumatic drill, like Andile. For the record, Xhosa is the single most fantastic language I have ever heard. It sounds like they swallowed a drum kit.

Yet when it comes to mystifying, nothing beats Pidgin. For those of you have never been to Nigeria, Pidgin is the lingua franca there. My Uncle Courtney speaks Jamaican Patois, Rima speaks Creole, and it puts them both to shame. Apparently it’s partly English, but I have no clue what’s going on when I hear it. I did get some insight into how Nigerians learn their pronunciation though. Ola said that when she was younger, her mother used to tell her off for saying ing instead of in' at the end of words. Based on my textbook knowledge of Nigerian parenting, this is how I imagine that conversation typically went: