LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

     Relocating to another country should involve learning the local 
language.  In England they speak English... so we've got that covered. 
Except it's the accent that everyone covets.  Who doesn't love a proper English accent!  

Chronically English Madge

Born here, I left too long ago to retain mine.  I'm certainly not going to adopt it now, like the kid I knew in high school who returned from a three week stint in London with a full-on British accent, or Madonna.  Some people seem to absorb it just flying over UK airspace.  Not me.  I can't even say 'cheers' without feeling like a pretender, as out of place as a badger in the Mojave.  I have one holdout from childhood... I say toe-mah-toe, Husband always ridiculed me for it.  He says to-may-toe.  Over here everyone says it my way.  Husband had to back off.

     Husband and I speak in a pitch different than our British friends.  
There is a musicality to their speech, the words lilt at the end of a sentence, like they are full of joy and possibility.  When they say 'good-bye' on the phone, there is a pleasant upswing on the second syllable, like parting is such sweet sorrow.  When Husband and I speak in our flat dull tone we feel like knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, only a few syllables away from a grunt.  We stand out like sore thumbs.  It's different in London where you're surrounded by every language imaginable.  Here, we're the only aliens in the village.

      The British are extremely polite and everyone knows it's rude to stare, but when people hear us speak, they do stare.  Unspoken questions traipse across creased foreheads.  'What the bloody hell are you doing here,  talking like that?'  Everybody knows who you are, even if they haven't met you, which is sometimes kind of nice.  Like being a bizarre celebrity because of an unfortunate speech pattern.  In the market towns we frequent we have become familiar oddities; our flat voiced cadence is our calling card.

Why Do You Talk Like That?

Try to Ignore Them.  I do.

     

    








     
     England has many dialects.  You can travel from one end of the country to the other and encounter vast differences in vernacular.  People from all over the UK live in Somerset but it's the local West Country dialect that I love, with its hard S's that almost sound like Zeds and rolling Rs, so that Somerset sounds like, Zomerrrrzet.  It's like living amongst pirates.  I think of Long John Silver and Robert Louis Stevenson.  It takes you to an imagined world  of adventure and swashbuckling.  I want to head to the nearest coastline, and find the cave where the gold doubloons are hidden.  

Could You Please Direct us to 
the Gold Dubloons?

You're Sure He Said This Way?

     Only problem is, sometimes, when the accent is really heavy, we aliens are lost without translation.  You can only say 'pardon me' so many times before you become an irritant.  We smile and leave a conversation clueless; we'll never find where the buried treasure is.   Given instructions by a farmer we cannot understand, we nod dumbly and head off happily in the wrong direction.  He watches us go, a word bubble forms over his head, 'Village Idiots,' he thinks.

    

An Idiot in the Village

     Language isn't just words, it's also intonations and attitudes, the unspoken.  There are rules for discourse here.  Husband and I don't know them all quite yet.  In fact, we barely know any.  We have learned it's rude to ask too many questions.  That restriction goes against every instinct I have.  I'm an inveterate question asker.  I ask more than most.  Lots of questions.  Irritatingly so.  Some people like it, it shows you are interested in them, others don't, perceiving it as prying.   

     Husband and I like to chat with people we meet.  We strike up a conversation with a man on a moor and I ask why he's harvesting thistle?   Because the seeds are good for his budgerigars… duh.   I ask the farmers what kind of cattle are those?  Can a limousin really clear a five foot high metal gate?  Is it still too wet to plant?  How long until the levels drain?   How often do you have to re-thatch your roof?  How many miles is it to Burrow Mump?  When did Saint Wulfric arrive in Haselbury Plucknett?  What's a faggot? (A traditional food made of offal)   

Faggots and Peas

      As we pass on our perambulations we look at people and say hello and smile.   They avert their gaze to the flock of birds overhead.  Is that an Iberian Chiffchaff or a Pied Flycatcher, I ask?  

Why Do You Talk Like That, 
Said The Iberian Chiffchaff?

Sometimes people just narrow their eyes and say , I don't know.  Other times they are surprised and happy to answer questions not put to them before.  We can't help it, we're curious though apparently extremely impolite and irritating Canucks.  

     
     Another thing we've had to curtail is our unbridled enthusiasm.  People here are much more reserved than we.  But we love it here... perhaps deliriously so.  Like true aliens, we are discovering a new world.  The sky is so blue!  The air is so clean!  The lambs are so cute!  The grass is so green!  The rain is so wet! 

Why do you talk like that?

     Often we sound positively giddy.  Last week at the Wells' Market Husband was thrilled to find his favorite baker had his favorite chocolate cake.  "My husband has been dreaming of your chocolate cake!"  I exclaim loudly, a slight tinge of lunacy in my voice.   The baker blushed red, and looked down at her feet.

Go to Wells for the Chocolate Cake

Forget the Cathedral....

  

     And so we continue to roam the moors and frequent the villages, insulting or startling the population every time we open our mouths.  But that's okay, because, as Canadians, we're also masters of the word, "Sorry."