Judith Lacy’s Jottings: Language Expo celebrates the languages around us

The Portuguese stall at the Manawatū Multicultural Council's Language Expo at Palmerston North Central Library on Saturday. From left are Amelia, Lucy and Renata. The feathered objects are peteca or hand shuttlecocks. Photo / Judith Lacy

OPINION

It says so much about my brain that I can remember just two phrases from three years of schoolgirl French.

The first is “Je m’appelle Judith”. This could come in handy if I don’t have a name badge on.

The second is “ferme la bouche”, which literally means close your mouth but we St Mary’s girls took it to mean shut up. Uttering this phrase is unlikely to be a wise choice in the 19th arrondissement of Paris or even the Catacombs.

I’ve written before about getting zero out of 20 in French dictation. My admiration for people who speak two, three, four or five languages remains undiminished.

As a child, I struggled with saying “th”, which was particularly troublesome seeing it is part of my name. Speech therapy and lots of practice got me through that. I often used to tell my adult students that story to illustrate how hard English is.

The Language Expo at Palmerston North Central Library last Saturday was fantastic. It was organised by the Manawatū Multicultural Council and featured 17 stalls full of language learning tools and activities.

At the Mandarin stall I learned some Chinese characters are stylised drawings of the objects they represent. A patient woman talked me through a worksheet asking me to link the pictures to the Chinese characters. My first problem was I didn’t have my glasses on and the second was I couldn’t recognise all the pictures. Mouth is the only one I got. Funny that.

Having your name written in another language is a feature of stalls at the Festival of Cultures but the Korean stall went one better and wrote it on a sticky label I proudly wore around the expo.

At the Telugu stall I learned Telugu is the official language in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Telugu has 56 letters - 18 vowels and 38 consonants - and I thought learning English was hard.

As she wrote my name in Telugu one of the stallholders explained why she was choosing particular symbols. I nod, hoping I look wise.

The Sinhala stall appealed to my sense of humour. If you are visiting Sri Lanka be careful who you say “bambuwa” to as it can mean “stuff it”. “Mala wadayak” is a person who is a pain in the neck.

At the Farsi stall I’m given an envelope that contains a taste of Persian literature. Farsi is the official language of Iran. It is also spoken by people in neighbouring countries.

I learn English has borrowed many words from Farsi, including chess, lemon, spinach, turquoise and magic.

At the Irish stall I’m asked if I know any Irish words. Does Tipperary, where my great-grandfather and fellow J S Lacy came from count?

It turns out whiskey is from the Irish uisce beatha, meaning water of life. Of course.

Galore is from go leor - ‘til plenty or a lot. English is such a magpie language. Go to YouTube and search for The history of English (combined) and you will see what I mean.

Having a dedicated event to get a taster of some of the languages spoken in Palmerston North is a brilliant idea and the stallholders went to a lot of trouble to engage visitors.

It was easier to take it all in when you are not juggling half a pineapple filled with cream or trying to talk louder than the music as can be the case at the Festival of Cultures.

I’m grateful I didn’t have to learn English as an adult. All I had to do for it to be my mother language was to be born to English-speaking parents.

Remember, struggling with English is no measure of someone’s brain power or worth.