language

I didn’t manage to learn Italian in 2 weeks, but I did try and disguise my Spanish to sound Italian-ish. I learned quickly that Spanish does work somewhat, and works even better if you wave your arms and use your hands a lot. Italian is more body language than spoken language, especially in Naples, where I felt conversations could be muted and still completely understood if you just watched.

I had this image of loud Italian women yelling at eachother across the street, perched up in their balconies laden with clothes-lines full of colourful clothes. I first arrived in Milan, where they have a municipal by-law against clothes lines on your balcony, so I didn’t see it there. The streets were also full of loud traffic, and the city center had mostly business and commercial offices filling the buildings. But in Naples, the historical city center is mostly apartments, full of this scene – narrow streets that you look down and see balcony after balcony with clothes that must never dry. In the morning and the evening, bickering ladies come out and yell, waving their arms a lot, and it always sounds like they’re arguing, but I’ve been told they’re saying very affectionate things.

The little streets, which I would have gotten totally lost in if I wasn’t following my Napolitan host, ring with the sound of scooters, driving just a little too fast and taking every corner and overpass just a little too close. Noone wears a helmet, and sometimes 3 adults squeeze onto one seat, bottoming out on every big cobblestone. You yell in Italian, with your hands, while youre driving too, which made me slightly uncomfortable when I was the passenger. Luckily my friend Adriano didn’t have a scooter, but while driving his hatchback, would let go of the steering wheel and flail his arms around, yelling something at everyone that cut him off. Even though the windows were shut and no one could hear him, they could see him, and thus, message communicated.

I picked up some pointers on speaking Italian with your hands and figured this much out: always move your arms about, even if you’re talking on the phone and the other person cant see you; move your hands in straight lines, up and down, or left to right; switch between having your palm faced upward or downward, but keep you fingers frayed; roll your forearms around eachother alot. To make a point, pout your middle and index finger to your thumb and shake your hand infront of your chest. If your boasting, tilt your head back, jut your jaw out and puff your chest up pompously. Tilt your head up and jut your jaw out while nodding your head if you agree with someone. Tilt your head up and jut your jaw out and shake your head if you disagree with someone, and if you have something to say to correct them, shut them up by grabbing their hands – since they can’t keep talking if you stop their hands from moving. If you want to make them stop talking a little more politely, or make your point more poignant, put the back of your hand on their chest and push a little til they stop.

The most important thing was to smile and laugh a lot, touch eachothers hands and arms a lot, and never stop communicating with your hands since they wont hear you if youre just talking with your lips… atleast they’ll stop listening or understanding you, whether or not you’re actually speaking Italian.

When I was a child growing up in Iceland, I spoke Icelandic, perfectly and fluently. Then at age 8, after moving to Canada, I almost failed grade 2 because I couldn’t understand why noone would respond to my Icelandic. I eventually spoke english well enough to be comfortable speaking only English, but then forgot all my Icelandic. Then I learned french, a lot of French – one of the perks of emigrating to a bilingual country. I studied abroad, in France and Australia, majored in English, and came out a pretty good bilingual Canadian.

My first, biggest, (quasi) solo travel experience was participating in a 100-day circumnavigation of the world, peetering around the equator on the MV Explorer with 600 other students. The program is called Semester at Sea, and for anyone who has done it or is considering doing it, just know that it will either make you an OCD travel addict or, leave you feeling like you never need to travel again. The former happened to me, so the following summer I embarked on my first, true backpacking trip through South America and the Caribbean for 2 months. The two summers after that I also spent backpacking in South America, so then I learned Spanish. First, it was just travel-survival Spanish, but eventually, I started thinking in Spanish and forgetting my French, even English at times.

Then to make matters even worse, I decided to move back to Iceland in 2008, which was when I realized I’d have to relearn Icelandic. Three years later, Ive only spent a total of 11 months actually in Iceland, in chunks of a few weeks or months here and there, so its coming together, but falls apart every time I go to a French or Spanish speaking country and my second-language confidence switches between the three. Worst of all, the longer I spend trying to sort out my secondary languages, my english deteriorates, and my handle on the language fluctuates from good to satisfactory, then back to okay. Good friends of mine know this as “Katrin-speak,” and even speak it fluently, since I regularily mix up my syntax, make up words, and switch between languages in a way that they’re used to.

Now, Ive had my first full year away from University, and if it wasn’t for reading and writing in English, Im not sure what would happen to my ‘first’ or ‘strongest’ language. My family in Canada tells me I speak English with an Icelandic accent, Icelanders tell me I speak good Icelandic for a foreigner, and everywhere else people wonder where Im from, and when I answer Iceland, compliment my English for being so strong. This used to go unnoticed, but before I considered it a compliment, realized that the flattery is only intended by those who believe I am an ESL speaker.

So, I clearly have a language identity issue. Now, to make things more interesting, I have a cultural identity issue on top of all this, maybe stemming from the first problem, or perhaps reconfirming it. I’m an Icelandic born, Canadian raised, (soon-to-be) triple-passport holding daughter of a Guyanese mother, and Ive spent more time traveling than staying in any one place for the last three years. In North America, people think I look native American, so when I tell people I’m from Iceland, they picture some northern/Greenlandic indigenous group that I’m most likely descendant from. I only correct them half the time, since when questioned by an Icelander, “Where are you from?” I say Canada, and they probably picture very similar looking native North American ancestors.

Elsewhere, people think I look latin or middle eastern, but in Latin America they call me gringa and in Egypt, a “white” person, which Ive come to learn is a generic term meaning “rich westerner.” When people notice I look darker than most “white” people, I accredit my tanned skin to my mother, who’s from Guyana. “Ghana?” some ask, “No, GUYana” I respond. Then a short pause is followed by “Oh, Guinea!” and again I say, “No, GUY-ANA.” Then to save face, they dismiss their total confusion by asking “what part of Africa is that?” at which point I have to explain its actually in South America, that its not French Guiana, and then ask whether or not they really thought I look African. If so, then I’ve got a real identity problem; one can’t really look ‘African’ since the term only correctly refers to someone who lives in Africa, and the continent encompasses such a diverse and complex mix (of millions) of people, including those infamous ‘whites.’