Sandy's Say: Cross Cultural Confusion
So was it a doek, or a duck?
Sandy James tells how the language and dialect she grew up with led to confusion and loud chuckles in other countries.
Many years ago, whilst visiting my mother's sister in Lancashire, we were spending the morning picking fresh strawberries at one of those 'Pick your own' farms. Each of us had a punnet to fill and the two families were spread out amongst the rows of plants in an extensive field, crouching down, trying to find the ripest, juiciest fruit.
"'Ave ye seen mi muther?" asked my cousin in his broad, northern accent.
"Yes," I replied in my equally strong, yet almost diametrically opposed, South African accent. "She's just over there, with a 'doek' on her head." Unthinkingly I had used the Afrikaans word for 'headscarf.'
"Eee," said my confused cousin, "Wot's she doin' wit' t'duk on 'er 'ead?" In his part of the world, the word "duk" means "duck."Officially we were both speaking English yet we could hardly understand each other. It did make for a good round of mirth though.
My African background led to further confusion when I arrived in Australia. I was down at the picturesque Manly Wharf, from where the ferries commute across Sydney Harbour to the city.
"I'll catch the rope, mate. No wucking ferries," I overheard one deckhand shout to another.
Now, I don't know about you, but where I come from, if the ferry "she is not wucking" then "she is broken." So I was mystified when the ferry pulled in and left again, seemingly in perfect working order.
My Australian friends collapsed with laughter when I asked for an explanation. Apparently "no wucking ferries" is a variation, with rhyming slang and a juxtaposition of initial consonants, of the phrase, "No f-ing worries." It is also sometimes abbreviated to "'no wukkas" or "no wuckers." How was I to know? In South Africa, when there are "no wuckers" it is because the employees are out on strike.
In South Africa, the Zulu language borrows some words from both English and Afrikaans, especially when these words describe items which arrived with colonisation. These words are then changed ever so slightly and an 'i' is placed in front of them. For example, 'coffee' is taken from the Afrikaans "koffie" and becomes "Ikhofi".'Chain' is taken from the Afrikaans "ketting" and becomes "iketanga".'Tea' becomes "itiye" and 'cat' becomes "ikati ". Words which originally contained an 'r' are changed to an 'l' sound as the Zulu language, like the Chinese languages, has no 'r' sound. So, 'rice ' becomes "ilayisi" and the currency, the 'rand' is changed to "ilandi".
I was once explaining these concepts to a friend when he said excitedly, "Don't tell me. I think I'm getting the hang of this. I am sure that I could now work out the Zulu word for 'lorry'. He was a rather bright young man so I waited patiently, fully expecting him to come up with the correct word, "iloli".
"Ooh, ooh, I know what it is," he said, grinning triumphantly." I've seen it a million times before, written in bold letters on the back of trucks. It's ISUZU, isn't it?"
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