Fast food and faster words by Nury Vittachi

MY FRIEND’S DAUGHTER works in a fast food shop in an airport. I watched her and her friends in action the other day.
The weird thing is that the staff can communicate perfectly well in English with anyone from Hong Kong, South Asia, East Asia, or pretty much any other part of the region.
But when a fresh-off-the-boat tourist enters the restaurant, communication gets difficult. Monolingual English speakers from America, for example, “hear” Asian-English words differently.
Fast food server: Harlowelcumkaneye L. pyoo?
Customer: What?
Fast food server: Harlowelcumkaneye L. pyoo?
Customer: Er, yes, I’d like one cheeseburger please.
Fast food server: Dull Swiss wit Baygon?
Customer: Excuse me?
Fast food server: Dull Swiss wit Baygon?
Customer: Oh, no, I don’t want a double-Swiss with Baygon, I mean bacon. I just want a normal cheeseburger.
Fast food server: Humbugger wit jees. Setter Al Eckart?
Customer: Pardon me?
Fast food server: Setter Al Eckart?
Customer: Ah, got it. A La carte, please.
Fast food server: One-for-rice wee tat?
Customer: No, I don’t want rice, thank you very much.
Fast food server: One-for-rice wee tat!
Customer: Oh, yes, please, I want fries with that.
Fast food server: Smormy dyumludj?
Customer: I’m sorry, would you mind…?
Fast food server: Smormy dyumludj. U juan smor, me, dyum, ludj?
Customer: Medium.
Fast food server: Ad too duller soup a size.
Customer: What?
Fast food server: Ad too duller soup a size.
Customer: Not supersized, thanks. I’m fat enough already, ha ha!
Fast food server: Wad rink u juan?
Customer: Fresh orange juice, please.
Fast food server: Fray soringe ad too duller. Chippa u buy set.
Customer: Okay, gimme a set.
Fast food server: Wit set you juan?
Customer: Cheeseburger.
Fast food server: Dull Swiss wit Baygon set?
Customer: Excuse me?
Fast food server: You juan dull Swiss wit Baygon set?
Customer: No, I don’t want – actually, maybe I do want Baygon. At least it would kill my appetite.
How come Asians can communicate with other Asians using this bare-bones English, while tourists struggle with it? Because English is really a whole group of languages. A tourist who speaks only “the Queen’s English” limits himself to communicating with speakers of that dialect. But if you speak Asian English—which I propose we call Englasian—you end up with a language the majority of people on Earth can understand.
In fact, I reckon we should train the Queen of England to speak it. I can just picture her on her next tour of Asia stepping off the Royal yacht and saying: “We are most amused to be here. My husband and I would like to say harlowelkumkanwee L. pyoo.”
**
Donated to Tom Wood from Nury Vittachi
The Curious Diary of Mr Jam Have a look at Nury's blog - always well worth a visit - enjoy.
Best wishes
Tom

Comments

[Chris Durbin]

Nury
Thanks for this, I have often loved the way the language is spoken in different cultural contexts - it is great to hear an Indian, West Indian, a Serb and an American speak - English - fun in fact.

Language is a living evolving phenomenon and to try and fossilise it through either social power or the speech police would make our world a poorer place. It cannot be done. We may well have a world in the future where Englasian is the language of the world - or indeed Second Language English. Even us mono-linguals thrive from dialect and accent as well expressions from different regions. I recall when I first met Jane only from 100 miles away from where I come from with whole new world of expressions and phrases that add to the colour of life. She asked "What was going off?' of a group of us. I thought she was referring to a bad smell - we all did, and sniffed...it turns out that she meant in my own terms 'What is going on?' or 'What is happening here?' The fun of misunderstandings from people through language makes this world a richer place. I am for more miscommunication and diversity of any language. It seems to me that through laughing about this mis-communication, we communicate more, unless we enjoy lauding power over others.

You could put forward a Darwinian theory of language - those that adapt survive, those that don't become extinct but I wouldn't want to be so dismissive of all those minority languages that enrich our world too. It is a hard place to be as a mono-lingual but there always words that become English because there is no simple way of translating them. Schadenfreude for example... Voila is such a great French word - no English equivalent

Great blog and as ever your wit enriches our lives