I love language. I love
learning foreign languages. Having said that, I can sometimes get
extremely upset about language issues. One that gets me going
anytime, anyplace, anywhere, is
”I cannot express
myself as I wish in Danish. If I really have something important to
say, I will speak in English because I cannot convey all the
subtleties that I want to communicate in Danish.”
This is a real, deeply
felt problem for almost all foreigners in Denmark. Or, for that
matter, for any foreigner in a country with a language that is not
his – or hers.
So I don't want to play down the problem. But really, that is the
destiny of being a foreigner: having to fumble in a language that is
not your own, however much you may be at ease with it. And in it.
Danish only
There's also the
opposite: Danes who, even though
they can speak some English, refuse to do so. They are afraid of
making mistakes, I guess. Or they want to make a point - most often
a nationalistic one.
To
a certain extent I can accept that. It's a free country. But I get furious when I hear
that civil servants at Skat, the Danish tax service, refuse to speak
English to callers who called to a special phone number,
designated to calls in English!
And that for a public service! From my 'skattekroner'! Why on earth bother having special phone numbers for that, Skat?
Sorry,
I got carried away.
I can
also accept, to some extent, foreigners in Denmark who refuse to
speak Danish at work. They consider that it is better to maintain a
professional position as a relative outsider not speaking Danish,
than to try to talk professionally in Danish and sound like a
five-year old. Speaking Danish that way would undermine their
professionality, they say, and they are probably right. Also, it
takes quite some time to build up a vocabulary that is extensive
enough to communicate professionally.
Fine. But don't come and complain to me about those cold Danes if you don't even want to make an effort to speak Danish (and the idea that you make friends at work in Denmark is another fallacy - read here).
English only?
But what I find really
hard to accept are English native speakers who refuse to speak Danish
because they cannot express themselves as they mean in that language,
so they keep on talking English. To them I have a question and an
observation. The question is: what gives you the right to put the
Dane you are talking to in precisely the position you so desperately
want to be out of – the one who is stumbling, looking for words,
feeling uncomfortable?
And the observation is:
welcome abroad! This is what living abroad is all about for the rest
of us non-Anglophones! Do you really think speaking English has grown
on me overnight? Don't you think I feel silly making mistakes, in
both Danish AND English? Don't you think we sound different and more
at ease in our own languages? Oh, and another thing: do you really
mean it when you are paying me a compliment for my 'excellent'
English – or are you doing the polite English thing?
*grumble*
I tried to tell all
this, as politely as I could, to an Anglophone who innocently told me
he did not speak Danish with Danes in certain situations, thereby
unwittingly setting off all the alarms. Of course I tripped over my
words doing so, and accidentally called Anglophones...
Anglosaxophones. Thereby proving my point in several ways: speaking
and thinking in a language that is not your own tends to make you
trip over your words. And you tend to make a fool of yourself, even
if you try very hard not to.
He and I laughed it
off, and it became a running gag between us. Anglosaxophones. It has
a, well, kind of special ring to it.
I vote this word be included in the Oxford dictionary. Anglosaxophones: people who do not wish to sound anything other than English.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenBeautiful word, great blogpost!! Thanks Inger!
BeantwoordenVerwijderen