“I greet thee, Mistress. Is the day not fine? Hast thou a cup of your finest caffeinated brew that I might partake of whilst en route?”
I realize now that this how I sounded to the Egyptians while I was speaking the Modern Standard Arabic and not the local dialect they speak. I was slightly misled by well meaning Egypt-expats in the US who said that people would understand me if I used Modern Standard Arabic. Once in Cairo, my Egyptian friends warned me that I sounded, well, a bit formal. No one told me that I sounded like an absolute jack-ass. Yes, people understood me, yes shopkeepers gave me what I asked for and yes, they never once dropped the "wtf" look of puzzlement from their faces. It was easier to speak English in Cairo rather than Modern Standard. Eventually, I managed to learn enough of the Egyptian Arabic to get through the day.These revelations come a bit late, but they came at all because I've started studying the Modern Standard again. There are a lot of similarities between the Modern Standard and the Egyptian Arabic, which helps. So far, I'm ahead of the curve with vocabulary and waaaaaaaay behind everyone else in grammar. My brain is starting to get the hang of it, but every cell in my body screams "Who talks like that?"
To my lovely friends in Egypt, all I can say is that al-hamdu li'llah I finally, finally get what you were trying to tell me.
3 comments:
I still prefer the Heather standard of "what are you on smack?". Oh those were the days.
I do know the feeling. When I landed in Japan, my co-workers laughed and laughed, saying that although my Japanese was fluent, I sounded like a 60-year-old grandmother from Kyoto. I blame that on my professor in college, who was, actually, a 60-year-old grandmother from Kyoto.
But, Madhu, when you speak English, you sound like a 60-year-old grandmother from London, i.e., Queen Elizabeth, and circa 1959.
Heather, your sample coffee shop question made me laugh out loud.
-- Elin
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