The Wayfaring Wordhack

to celebrate a wedding. o.O

Talk about a cultural divide. Gunfire is just not something I'd want at my wedding.

Anyhow, the sounds had me nervous because an aquaintance is freaking out about life here (I think it is mostly because she doesn't like it), and she shared a "news" story* about how the Muslim Brotherhood is giving foreigners until Feb 11 to get out of the country before they start acting with violence towards us.

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* Since there is no identifiable source to this story, J's work is not taking it seriously.

We hired a cleaning lady, and she started today.  My house is mostly clean now, and I had very little to do with it! It is only "mostly" clean because for the past four months, at least, I have been doing the bare minimum to keep the place livable. Z, as I shall refer to her from now on, really had her work cut out for her.  She didn't get around to scrubbing down the kitchen and bathroom, but she'll come back on Saturday.

I don't know what she makes of me and all the odd homemade cleaners I sprang on her, seeing as how we can't understand each other. No, I haven't gotten motivated to learn Arabic. Fie for shame upon me. I had a doozy of a time trying to explain what to use where, so I'm going to try to have everything labeled in Arabic for Saturday. Don't let me down, Google Translator!

I had grand plans of relaxing but sadly, yet again, Sprout and I are coming down with some kind of crud. Sprout's started yesterday with stopped up sinuses and sick-toddler behavior. Mine started today with a mighty sore throat. Unless the odd headache I had yesterday presaged this ick.  Anyhow, I did get to take a nap* and wake up to a house that was looking better by the minute, but I still feel like something that has been dragged down the road a fair piece.  We'll see what it morphs into.  I don't remember catching so much crud when I was pregnant with Sprout, but then I was living in a tiny French village, not in the midst of a noisy, polluted metropolis. C'est la vie. And I'm hoping all these germ assaults are translating into a formidable immune system for Junebug.


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* a sorely needed nap, for I had been awake since 4:45 a.m., unable to fall back asleep.

We got a free catfood sample at a local grocery store, and the sack reminded me of the oddities of onomatopoeias across languages.* This is always interesting to me but especially so since we are awaiting a little one. A little one whom we will raise in a bilingual household. I guess I'll do animal sounds with Little Bean in English, and Julien will teach him or her the French, like the alphabet.  The poor kid is probably going to have a heck of a time learning to spell his or her name. 

In French vs English, some onomatopoeias are similar, but because of pronunciation rules, they are spelled differently.  Case in point, the sound a cat makes: Meow as opposed to miaou. Here are the examples from the sack in question: 

"Mmmh" is easy enough. "Waouh" is an odd, almost-imperceptible smoosh between "wow" and "whoa." But "miam," do you know what English sound that translates, too?


How about these animal sounds:

Hiii
Meuh
Coin
Cot cot
grouin
ouaf waf









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* When I first arrived in France as an au pair, the kids I babysat did not understand when I said "aie aie aie;" they taught me, instead, to say "oy oy oy."

And speaking of sounds, French boys don't whistle at pretty girls the same way US boys do. Just so you know.

Before coming to Mayotte, I thought that the words, or concepts of, if you will, "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome" were givens in every society, as is the polite formulation of making a request. Not so, or in my dealings with the Mahorais, I have not found them to be a natural part of conversations and interactions.

It isn't as if the words please and thank you don't exist, either in French--the official language--or Shimaoré, the native language of the Mahorais. French has the formal "vous" for "you" which gives polite another dimension (and rudeness, for that matter, but that is another discussion altogether), which the Mahorais eschew completely. All right; fair enough. I prefer the less formal "tu" in any case. It makes conjugating verbs a lot easier to have only one form.

But those polite forms of request making (ex: Would you mind...? Could I...?) that I mentioned? I can tell you that they exist in French, too, but I don't know enough Shimaoré to comment on structure and phrasing. Nonetheless, for at least three generations now, the Mahorais have been taught French in school, so I'm sure the concept is not foreign to them. However, when someone comes to my home or stops me in the street wanting something, they don't ask, they state their desire or they demand.

( A few luciferous examples: )

At first these kinds of situations really, really bothered me. Now they only kinda sorta bother me. I have to chant to myself, "It's only a cultural difference; it's only a cultural difference," and most times that works. At least such situations engender a laugh and a bemused moment or two of head-shaking.

Related, and yet not, is the very African view that the Mahorais have regarding personal space and queueing up. If you leave a gap between you and the person in front of you in line, rest assured that someone will try to sneak in there. Sometimes, even without the space, they will barge in and try to get checked out first. That is when Miquela starts breathing fire and setting things straight. If I have a cartful and you have one to five items, if you are polite and not pushy, I will offer to let you go first. But the moment you start acting like it is your right, you are in trouble. And I don't just turn into a fire breathing dragon when people are encroaching on me. If I see it happening further back in the line to people too timid to speak up, I'll open my big yap. (This is the same Miquela who ripped the interior handle off the door of her car while furiously yanking it open to stop a guy from breaking into someone else's vehicle. Who knew that I had superpowers brought on by outrage?)

I have also never lived in another country where it is necessary to put up posters in supermarkets, schools, and hospitals that read, "For the hygiene of all, please refrain from spitting." These reminders truly are necessary because the Mahorais will hawk up and spit whatever they want, wherever they want.

Being a writer and, by extension, a student of my fellow creatures, I get to thinking about how I tend to go into both life and fiction assuming that all people, granted with minor to major differences, think basically like I do on fundamental things such as manners and how to address strangers, friends, and acquaintances. Being a fan of common courtesy and politesse, I assume that others will act and react like my society and I think they should; hence my approach to different cultures in my books takes several passes before they stop resembling each other. And moving to Mayotte has shown me just how much more diverse they can get without straying into Fantasyland.

How about you? Have you encountered societal differences that you found irritating/enlightening? If so what, where, and why?