Language shock

I don’t know about you, but I had a language shock when I moved to North America from Nigeria.  No, I don’t mean a cultural shock, a language shock.  I know most people have the cultural shock, but if you actually think about it, (especially if you are in North America), then you also must have had a language shock.  And I’m not just talking about the accent (‘phone’  as we called it, short for phonetics and pronounced as ‘fune’), I’m also talking about having different words and phrases for things you were used to calling a certain way. 

 Yeah, the accent part is a whole different ball game.  It’s something anybody travelling abroad is always prepared for.  No matter how well read you are, or how enlightened you think you are , or how many English movies you watch daily  (this, funny enough could actually help), nothing quite compares to the constant contact with the real thing.   With steady interaction however, your ears become more attuned to the accent and how the words are pronounced, and well, before you know it, you start sounding like them because it’s either that or you risk not being understood; like saying ‘wora’ for water, ’pary’ for party etc. 

The thing with this ‘fune’  is that it’s really something one can turn on and off (especially if you were born and bred in Africa).  As far as I’m concerned, only those who were born abroad and had their earlier childhood, maybe up to high school, actually have the real thing.  I’m sure you’ve noticed how quickly you tune in the ‘fune‘ when talking to oyibo and switch back to normal if taking to your fellow African.  Don’t get me wrong, with constant practice, one’s fune can almost pass for the real thing , but it’s something that is acquired with time and practice and not something you get in 1 month.  I remember chicks who would travel for 3 weeks and come back to Naija and speak fune.  It always sounded too fake and disgusting.  But if you live abroad, I suppose it is pardonable cos you have to constantly practice and refine the fune so that you’ll be understood.  Mine is still in the refining stage and getting better ( I feel so funny and fake when I tune in the accent, but hey! what can we do?)  But you know what?  No matter how good you sound, the oyibo will still say ‘you’ve got an accent’! we just can’t win, can we?

 Here’s a video of how to learn the American accent.  It sure can be useful if you ask me.

The second part of my language shock was having to learn new words for things I knew already.   It wasn’t long after I arrived US that I realized the Americans called certain things different names from what we called them back home in Nigeria.  These are words I knew too, but I was just not used to using them when referring to these things.  Let me give you some examples:

You know we use British English back home in Nigeria cos we were colonized by the British.  I think most African countries were colonized by the British.  I know Cameroun was colonized by France though.  What I’m not sure now is if Cameroun is a country!  Wow!  think I have to go back to first grade geography.  See?  That’s it again.  I had to learn to say first-grade instead of primary one.  Jeez!

I mean the list is endless.  It’s as if they just wanted to be as different from the British as they possible could.  And even when they just couldn’t find another word for whatever it was, they had to change the spelling like dropping ‘u’ in words like favour, valour, honour; or writing ‘er’ instead of ‘re’ in words like centre, litre or ‘ize’ instead of ‘ise’ in words like realise, organise and recognise.  I mean the list is endless ( I just said that again), and if one is going to raise children here, well you just have to get on-board and be up-to-date.  It’s really a lot more work living abroad than I thought.

The biggest change I had to get used to, was the different way the Americans write their dates.  It’s written mm/dd/yy unlike in Nigeria where we use dd/mm/yy.  So my baby’s birthday which is on the  8th of July 2009 will be written here in America as 07/08/09 instead of 08/07/09 which I was used to.   This really took some getting used to.

So how about you?  What new ways or things have you had to learn to do differently?  If you live abroad, what do you remember about your first experiences in your new counrty?