Language says it all — and then some

I read an article last week about a mother’s lament that her son was headed to Germany this summer and he didn’t speak German. She criticized the fact that American students are only taught a foreign language in high school, not before.

I flashed back (waay back) to my childhood, growing up in San Francisco. My mother was born and raised there but lived all her life in Chinatown. She spoke both English and Cantonese. My Chinese grandmother (who was also born and raised in Chinatown, San Francisco) spoke Cantonese and limited English to me, mixing both languages in her sentences. That is how I learned to speak Cantonese.

My father was born in Alabama and came to Letterman Hospital in San Francisco in 1952 after being injured in Korea while serving in the US Navy. Somehow, he met my mother, and here I am. My father was of Irish ancestry and spoke English. However, being raised in the South, he spoke with a thick southern accent. My southern grandmother, Uncle Jim and Aunt Martha subsequently all moved to San Francisco. Grandma took care of my sister Eleanor, brother Jeffrey, cousin Laurie (whose mother was Italian) and me. We all learned to speak English, or should I say southern English from her.

I remember her telling my sister to “comb her head.” When I tried to correct my grandmother by saying, “Grandma, it’s hair, not head,” she would answer, “That’s what I said! Comb yer head.” My sister was always misbehaving. My grandma used to say, “Elner, don’t be ugly” which meant ‘behave’ in normal English.

Then, there was Uncle Roger and Tante (Auntie) Giselle who occasionally watched me before my sister and brother were born. Roger and Giselle were not blood relatives, but good friends of my parents. They were originally from Quebec, Canada. Whenever I was at their home, they spoke French to me. This is how I learned to speak French and develop a taste for Cabernet Sauvignon wine. Uncle Roger used to caution me not to tell my father about drinking wine. He used to say, “You tell your

Papa you are drinking Pepsi.” To this day, I do not drink Pepsi.

Growing up in San Francisco also exposed me to Spanish, Italian, German and Japanese speaking people. It was an enrichment education of different groups of people, culture and life. One day, in second grade, the vice principal, Mr. Dougherty, came into the classroom and walked around while we were working at our desks. He stopped at my desk and said, “Well, you’re a southpaw!” He chuckled and walked around the classroom for a couple of minutes before leaving. I had never heard the word southpaw before and didn’t know what it meant. But, Mr. Dougherty had called me a southpaw and I was upset the rest of the day. That evening, I told y father about the incident. When I asked him what a southpaw was, he laughed and said it meant I was left-handed. I remember telling my father that I was not a bear and my hands were not paws. English-what a language …

In 1993, My then (now ex) husband and I flew to England to attend a Shire Draft Horse show in Peterborough. During the flight, he commented that visiting England would be easy, since the language was the same as the United States. Well, during the 10 days there, I had to translate much of what was spoken by the Brits, as he could not understand what they were saying. English — what a language …

Fast forward to now. My dear husband Tim has heard me speak French to French tourists while we were on vacation in Mexico and Cantonese when we are in Chinatown, San Francisco. In fact, he can order Chinese food now!

The other day, he was reading something on the internet when he asked me what a certain question meant. He said, “This is French. What does it mean?”

I looked at the question and took a deep breath before answering him. I said, “This question is not French. It is southern Alabama speech.”

Tim gave me a confused look. “What do you mean?” he asked.

I then read the question out loud to him, “J’eet?” He again asked me, “What does it mean?”

his time I broke the question down. “Did you eat? Or, as they say in the south, J’eet?”

At first, Tim thought I was kidding. Then, he answered, “Yeah. J’ou?”