language choices
Dec. 10th, 2004 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merchimerchI've been thinking a lot about my own language usage and the language that people choose to talk to me in. I've been musing on it off and on, but at some point our friend J from seattle looked at me and asked why I was speaking so much Russian to people. My answer was "because they expect me to." People who don't know me on the street expect me to be a Russian or a Pole or an Estonian unless they're being extra astute and guess German or English. Regardless, of all of those national identities, when in UZ they are supposed to speak Russian. I get hassled as a foreigner much much less when I speak Russian to taxi drivers, shop keepers, waitstaff etc. If I slip up and utter a phrase in Uzbek to a taxi driver who I don't already have a rapport with, I know I'm going to have a problem getting a decent fare. Its especially wierd when R is in the taxi with me because we are so obviously foreign with me negotiating the fare and sitting in front (not the appropriate thing for girls to do). Add to this the fact that people look at me when I'm outside on the street and say "zdrastvuitsiya" or "hello" in Russian. I have never heard an "Assalomu alaykum" from anyone who didn't know me. Strangers speak to me in Russian, so I speak back to them in Russian. Once people know me, it is often pleasant to speak Uzbek. The guys at our local corner shop and I speak Uzbek and my favorite taxi driver and I speak Uzbek so much that he forgot that I speak Russian.
This of course brings up the fact that despite the push by the media and education system to make Uzbek a respectable aristocratic language, many people, even young people, still think that it is classier to speak Russian. Part of this stems from the difficulty constructing complex sentences in Uzbek. If a sentence requires more than one dependent clause, even the most nationalistic Uzbeks switch to Russian. Uzbek sentences are short and simple phrases can be so beautiful and express levels of subtlety that English or Russian doesn't really have - it makes their poetry really power. But for long flowery sentences or complicated intellectual discourse, there is a reason people switch to Russian. Part of it is for the practicality and part of it I really believe is the pervading sense that aristocrats and intellectuals discourse in Russian. This is why people we so shocked and thrilled that I gave my paper in Uzbek at the conference - it is wierd on 2 levels, the obvious one, that an American girl would and could give a paper in Uzbek, and 2nd becuase a lot of Uzbeks choose to do their intellectual work in Russian. I can really attest to the fact that intellectual phrasology is damn hard in Uzbek - almost impossible sometimes. I really felt like i had to simplify some of my concepts to make them fit into the linguistic confines of Uzbek.
All of this aside, I'm always interested to see what happens when I am with people who speak the three languages that I speak. The Uzbek guy who works at the commissary speaks fine English and Russian and Uzbek. He's tickled that I speak Uzbek and our conversations which are usually about as deep as "do you have any frozen pizzas today?" and "nope, they should be in next week," can happen in any of the 3 languages. English and Uzbek tend to be more common than Russian, but not always, since people are used to embassy staff that speaks Russian. Yesterday I was at the commissary returning a video and the clerk and I were speaking english. At some point the conversation turned to politics and the conversation switched to Uzbek very quickly. We were ranting about our leaders in Uzbek, I think because that was the most secretive language we had in common for that area. There are tons of English and Russian speakers in the embassy, but less Uzbek speakers - maybe one or 2 embassy employees and the Uzbek nationals that work there. I think the conversation switched because it was a touchy subject and less people would have a chance of understanding if they overheard.
One thing I have a hard time figuring out is who is in charge of making these language changes. Except in the cases where I am struggling with my Uzbek and ask to switch to Russian, it is hard to remember who made the switch first. The only times it is really noticable is when I make the switch to Uzbek and the person I'm talking to obstinantly keeps speaking to me in Russian. I think I'll have to pay more attention.
This of course brings up the fact that despite the push by the media and education system to make Uzbek a respectable aristocratic language, many people, even young people, still think that it is classier to speak Russian. Part of this stems from the difficulty constructing complex sentences in Uzbek. If a sentence requires more than one dependent clause, even the most nationalistic Uzbeks switch to Russian. Uzbek sentences are short and simple phrases can be so beautiful and express levels of subtlety that English or Russian doesn't really have - it makes their poetry really power. But for long flowery sentences or complicated intellectual discourse, there is a reason people switch to Russian. Part of it is for the practicality and part of it I really believe is the pervading sense that aristocrats and intellectuals discourse in Russian. This is why people we so shocked and thrilled that I gave my paper in Uzbek at the conference - it is wierd on 2 levels, the obvious one, that an American girl would and could give a paper in Uzbek, and 2nd becuase a lot of Uzbeks choose to do their intellectual work in Russian. I can really attest to the fact that intellectual phrasology is damn hard in Uzbek - almost impossible sometimes. I really felt like i had to simplify some of my concepts to make them fit into the linguistic confines of Uzbek.
All of this aside, I'm always interested to see what happens when I am with people who speak the three languages that I speak. The Uzbek guy who works at the commissary speaks fine English and Russian and Uzbek. He's tickled that I speak Uzbek and our conversations which are usually about as deep as "do you have any frozen pizzas today?" and "nope, they should be in next week," can happen in any of the 3 languages. English and Uzbek tend to be more common than Russian, but not always, since people are used to embassy staff that speaks Russian. Yesterday I was at the commissary returning a video and the clerk and I were speaking english. At some point the conversation turned to politics and the conversation switched to Uzbek very quickly. We were ranting about our leaders in Uzbek, I think because that was the most secretive language we had in common for that area. There are tons of English and Russian speakers in the embassy, but less Uzbek speakers - maybe one or 2 embassy employees and the Uzbek nationals that work there. I think the conversation switched because it was a touchy subject and less people would have a chance of understanding if they overheard.
One thing I have a hard time figuring out is who is in charge of making these language changes. Except in the cases where I am struggling with my Uzbek and ask to switch to Russian, it is hard to remember who made the switch first. The only times it is really noticable is when I make the switch to Uzbek and the person I'm talking to obstinantly keeps speaking to me in Russian. I think I'll have to pay more attention.
