Culture and Language

I do believe all missionaries should get together and write a book about all the funny stories we have regarding language differences and barriers. We have a ton - and we live in a country where English is a trade language!

Sunday, was one such occassion for me. At Motupa, we meet in a Primary school room. Each week, there are different posters and such highlighting what they are learning. This past week, my eye caught the one on homonyms - words that are pronounced the same, but have different meanings. Now, I am one of those poor, tormented souls that should've been an English professor. I was the weird one that always loved English in school - and thought that diagraming was fun. Proof-reading is painful for me. When my husband asks me to proof-read something, he always prefaces it (with a knowing smile) by saying, "Now, it doesn't have to be perfect - I DON'T want to rewrite the whole thing, okay?" So, when I read the poster hanging on the wall in the dusty, hot classroom, everything within me shouted, "ERROR! WRONG! CORRECTION!"

This was the list of homonymns for the class...

Live/Leave
Fit/Feet
Sit/Seat
Flower/Flour
Pane/Pain

And now I'm sure you see what I saw. HOWEVER.... Africans pronounce their "i" as a long "e". Now, go back and reread those first few words with a long "e". (And yes - it's killing me that I can't figure out on Blogger how to type and "e" with a line over it to indicate that it's a long "e". Pray for me - no - pray for my soon-to-be-homeschooled kids.)

It struck me as funny, yet it is a real reminder of the differences in culture. It's all in your perspective. That is exactly what culture shock is - feeling stupid and wondering why everyone else is being stupid. It's understanding others - as they try to understand strange Americans! It's something being wrong to us - and right to them (and the other way as well).

I share a hilarious story here that I've read from a missionary wife on the subject...

Smith's Ghost ~

When we translate we must be very careful to use the right idioms. Since idioms are (according to Webster) “The way of speaking and putting words together peculiar to a language”, we have to know the cultural meaning behind words and phrases before we use them. If we are not careful, we could be communicating something entirely different from our intended meaning. To illustrate this point, here is a true story of what happened to an African Christian who once came to the States to study.

The African student was assigned to stay with a Christian couple whom I’ll call “the Smiths.” All was going very well with this arrangement until one day when the student was left alone in the house. That morning the Smiths had decided to go out for a day in town, so they said goodbye to their African guest and left. He was studying very intently at the table when the phone range. Not wanting to let it go unanswered, he picked it up and said, “Hello?”

A voice on the other end said, “Hello? Is Mr. Smith there, please?”
“No, he just passed away,” (His incorrect translation for “he went away.”)
“Uh, really?” said the voice incredulously. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry. Is his wife
there?”
“No, she passed away with him.”
The voice faltered, “Um I’m sorry to hear that…and who are you?”
“I’m his ghost.” (He meant to say “guest”, but with his heavy accent the diphthong
came out just a little bit wrong.)

When the confusion was later explained to the African student, he was very embarrassed. Fortunately no damage was done, and the two gentlemen were able to laugh at the humorous memory. (At the Edge of the Village by Lisa Leidenfrost/Canon Press)