Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The "American" Language


It's true. The Dutch think they know everything. They even think they know English better than we Americans, and they also think that "American" is a language, an inferior cousin to the English language.

It's a bizarre state of affairs. In the United States we don't refer to the Mexican, Puerto Rican or Columbian languages. We also don't refer to the Australian language, the Canadian language, the New Zealand language. No. These are all either Spanish or English. We recognize that there are differences in accent, usage, punctuation, but it always goes without saying that people in Australia speak English, and people in Mexico speak Spanish, unless they speak a tribal language, which we recognize as distinct.

In the United States we speak English. We know that our version of English differs some from folks in England, but still, we can converse, read each other's books, and watch each other's films.

That's why I never get it when a Dutch person tells me or my children we speak "American." There's no sense in correcting them, because they'll always brush you off with a "whatever, you know what I mean," and they'll continue on with whatever they were doing as if you hadn't said a thing. Because Dutch people are always right, and they always know better. They're Dutch, and you're American, and therefore inherently inferior. They also learned English English, so their English is also better. They think they can translate Dutch into English, but I can always tell when one of these people has translated anything, because it grates my ears.

Several weeks ago I was faced with the unpleasant experience of conversing with one of my son's teachers. The one who is so mean and impatient, he stews about her at times when he's not in class. She wanted to impress upon me the urgency of his problems in speaking Dutch. He's introduced the "th" sound into their most sacred of tongues, and urgently needed speech therapy. Though I spoke to her in perfect Dutch, she still asked me if I could understand her, and then she said, "Should we speak Engli, uh, American?"

(She's also one of the teachers responsible for the art project her students completed last year: 100 dollar bills with the words "The Bogus United States of America." I saw it, and said, "Well, I guess they don't like Americans here very much," and walked away, so I suppose she's taking out her ire on my son by making his 3rd grade experience as miserable as she can. She's going to change her manner soon, or else.)

We were at the speech therapist today. I thought she was enlightened. She's a speech therapist, after all, with an education in language, but I started to wonder when she kept repeating herself to me like a parrot, "Dutch is a what harder language," she said, "unlike American." I bit my tongue. It's no use telling these people anything.

Sometimes I wonder if they think this way because of the distinction they make between Dutch and Belgian. They'll say that a person in The Netherlands speaks "Nederlands," and a person in Belgian Flanders speaks "Flaams." But "Flaams" is still "Nederlands," something that even the snootiest of the snooty Dutch will concede. (They're a proud and arrogant people, but the softer Belgians are still "one of them," "in their camp," "on their team," etc.)

Next time anyone is stupid enough to tell me that I speak "American," I'm really going to have to call them out. Then again, maybe it's not worth it. The Dutch are highly skilled in brushing people off as though they're nothing, I've learned.

It's taken me quite a long time to realize it, but they actually really do see me as their inferior. Everyone, except for about three people. It seems like almost a universal. Perhaps it's something you can never really shed. I realized it when suddenly the word "FOB," popped into my head this evening.

Fob is actually an acronym for "Fresh off the Boat," and was used as a derogatory term referring to Europeans who just landed in America over a century ago. It's become antiquated as most educated Americans have learned to treat people from other cultures as intelligent equals.

It's odd that in the day of mass migration, of large numbers of people working, marrying, and moving across continents that people should still maintain such provincial attitudes toward people with an accent, another language, etc, but the Dutch manage to hold on to these attitudes with an ever tightening grip. I wonder if it will ever be possible to be treated as anything other than a "fob" by the masses of Dutch on automatic pilot, constantly putting you into the "foreign," or "lesser" pile as soon as you open your mouth.

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