WRITTEN by JOHN MORRIS
Language is ‘full of surprises’
Though the official language of Honduras is Spanish, Roatan is oddly different. Here you will hear a variety of languages due to the worldly expat population… but English is widely spoken and not surprisingly, varies considerably.
The long-time island families speak sort of a Creole English among themselves but are all highly fluent in Spanish and “normal” English. I use the word normal when, in reality, it is undefinable here.
For some of us English is a first language, for others it is a second or a third or… well you get my point. Add in the accents from native countries – along with slang – and you have what I call goulash English!
I can’t even imagine having to learn English as an adult.
The language is quirky, full of exceptions, irregularities and things no one can explain. There are words pronounced the same but spelled differently… and words spelled the same but pronounced differently, depending on the context.
There are even words spelled the same, pronounced the same but have completely different meanings!
If you try to learn Spanish as an adult, it makes much more sense. Then adjust the vocabulary and voilà, you have Italian!
The way someone speaks English or the words they use can be a dead giveaway as to their country of origin.
USA folks call their mode of transportation a car… a Canadian will call it a vehicle.
Dutch make pictures, not take them and Italians call anything and everything a machine. Coffee machine, dish-wash machine, clothes-wash machine, etc…
And of course for Italians, a car is simply a machine!
The other distinguishing factor of Europeans’ and Latin Americans’ English is the order of the adjective and noun as well as pronouns. Her wife and his husband can be very confusing.
My Italian wife likes a clean machine and loves to leave it at the wash car while we visit our favorite bar beach.
And then there is the poor letter ‘h’. Such a misunderstood letter that the Italians and Spanish simply do not pronounce it.
But what I find odd is that they add a letter ‘h’ to a word beginning with a vowel which I have never been able to figure out…
My wife loves to brush her ‘air’ after being out in the windy ‘hair’.
My good friend Helen now has a mysterious fictional twin sister called Ellen, thanks to the mysterious ‘h’!
I used to always tell my daughter that language is power. The more you know, the more valuable you are in this world. Sadly, the USA has never embraced this in schools… English and English only!
The Brits and Aussies are not much better.
The joke in my old business was ‘what do you call an international salesman who speaks only one language’ – the answer is, an American! (USA to be specific for all you politically correct readers!)
Many years ago, Barbara had to give a presentation to a bunch of folks from Kentucky. Now, Barbara’s English is pretty darn good but I had to translate the whole meeting from Italian English to Kentucky English or else it would have been a disaster!
One of my favorite scenes in the movie Lost in Translation is when Bill Murray, during a video shoot, asks the Japanese interpreter if he should turn to the right or the left. The translator posed the question to the director who went on a very long rant in Japanese.
The translator listened then finally turned to Bill and said “right”.
There are a lot of words out there, so think before you speak or you could be lost in translation too!
This Week’s Related Links:
Sign up for our weekly blog!
