SpangDeutschLish Rears its Ugly Head Again
Longtime faithful visitors to Life in the Fishbowl don’t need to be reminded that I’m far from an expert at foreign languages. My linguistic understanding is really more like a stew. SpangDeutschLish stew.
Apparently, my “default” foreign language has reverted back to German. There was obviously a language barrier between us and the nannies at the Care Center in Addis. They spoke very little English. We spoke very little Amharic. So we resorted to pointing and signing quite a bit.
But whenever I’d hear them say something to me in Amharic, my mind would register that they were speaking in a foreign language. So I wanted to respond to them in German.
That’s right. German.
I even caught myself actually responding in German once. A nanny was explaining something to us (I don’t remember what – probably about feeding Mihret) and I understood what she meant. I heard myself say, “Ah, sehr gut,” out loud.
It could be argued that because there’s still a lingering Italian presence (i.e. Chaio = “goodbye”) from the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in the early 20th century, I could have simply been trying to recognize Ethiopia’s cultural heritage. Because, after all, Germany and Italy aren’t that far from each other.
Or maybe I’m just a doofus.
Fortunately, I figured out how to say “Thank you” before I started telling everyone “Danke” or “Gracias.” That would have been embarrassing.
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