My husband speaks three different languages. It’s like being married to three different people. He takes on a different personality with each “language”. When he talks with the guys at the coffee shop or at a party of college-educated peers, he speaks perfect English. He appears to be current, articulate and clever.
He rarely shares this side of himself with me. I think he does it on purpose to make me die a long slow consonantless death. He reserves his consonants, the way women only wear their expensive perfume when they know they’re going to be around people they want to impress.
When he’s talking to his glider-flying redneck friends, he speaks Colorado Cowboy – dropping consonants and adding “big ole friggin” and “hunka” or “heapa or “loada” before each noun. He might even start off a sentence with “man” or “boy”. So a simple roadside guardrail to you and me, in Colorado Cowboy, is “Boy, tha’ was one big ole friggin’ hunka rusty metal.”
In Colorado Cowboy, the tongue must never reach the parts of the mouth where a sharp t or d or k or g are needed in order to be understood. Articulation of any kind is frowned upon.
I catch him talking to me like that when we’re in two different rooms. He doesn’t exaggerate his enunciation to counter for “wall muffle”. He thinks I can hear when there are competing noises and tries to talk to me when I’ve just flushed the toilet or am washing my hands. I know he’s talking because I can hear his voice, but I don’t bother to answer with a “What?” because he won’t factor in water or wall muffle.
Skye’s third language is a stripped down, basic model that he uses on anyone whose second language is English. It involves no conjunctions, prepositions or pronouns. It’s mostly nouns and verbs separated by mmmm’s, and each sentence is no longer than a phrase.
His “ESL language” was part of the on-the-job training he got his first week at Honda. He uses it on Japanese engineers, immigrant waiters, and, sadly, my elderly parents. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
I sat next to my husband in bed where he took a call from my mother who was concerned about her Toyota.
“What should I do, Sly?” my mother asked. She still sometimes calls him Sly instead of Skye.
“Your Toyota…is…no problem. Problem is….cars not your year.”
“Are you sure I’ll be okay??”
“Yes. Very sure. Yes.”
“But just in case, what should I do if my car accelerates unexpectedly?”
“Mmmm…should put car in neutral? Take out of gear? Don’t turn car off soooo…keep power steering? And break? Mmmm…..then….mmmmm steer off road. Mmmmm….turn engine off.”
The pauses are built in out of consideration, to give the person for whom English is a second language time to translate and keep up, lest they get lost on any two-syllable words, like neutral or power or engine. All very challenging.
He hung up the phone with my mom and I called him on it.
“Dude, you were using your ESL language on my mom.”
“I was not!”
“Mmm…should put car in neutral? Take out of gear? She speaks English!”
I don’t continue mimicking him. He looks a bit busted and embarrassed. This isn’t the first conversation we’ve had about his languages.
Of course, I have to call my mom while the conversation is still fresh in her head.
“Hey, Mom! It’s me.” I always say “it’s me” to see if she knows which one of her six daughters is calling. It’s a test of her love.
“Hi, Aims. What a coincidence. I just got off the phone with your husband.”
“Yea, I heard. How’d it go?”
“Good.”
“’He sound funny at all to you?”
“No, why?”
“Oh, I just wondered. Did you find out what you needed?”
“Yep. He was very helpful.”
Maybe she doesn’t know he speaks Normal. He has been talking to her like that since they met.
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