On any given day at my place of employment, you might find me speaking Spanish, German, Persian, and English. And then on occasion, you might just find me struggling to say anything of any sense at all. These moments of "Sprachkrise" occur especially when I am sleep-deprived, but never have my words felt more like "moldy mushrooms" than while working there. The other day I had to pause and think, "Did I just say that in German? I don't think I did. Maybe German word order? No, that's not it either. Then why is my boss looking at me like I might be insane?" Ten minutes later I finally figured out what I had said, which of course had made sense to me, was fraught with so much linguistic ambiguity that it had lost all meaning by the time it reached his ears. And then I could be heard muttering in German to myself about Hofmannsthal and pilzen and Sprachkrise. And so I must declare that I have become a character at my place of employment, but as long as it doesn't interfere too much with the duties of my job I should be alright.
6 comments:
The language in which I might be able not only to write but to think is neither Latin nor English, neither Italian nor Spanish, but a language none of whose words is known to me, a language in which inanimate things speak to me and wherein I may one day have to justify myself before an unknown judge.
Two hours of sleep will do that to anyone.
Linus has a good point.
An Hungarian friend was traveling in Europe and answered someone speaking to her in the airport. She later had to think about which language she had used as she knew so many. She also wasn't sure what she had used. BTW I thought people in OH-I-O speak German or at least some form of it. But I suppose your manager doesn't expect to hear it from you.
Get some sleep little one.
Funny Story.
Mutti
Any given hour of the day in our home, you may hear Millie and I echoing "Gillie-gillie-gillie=gillie-gillie" to each other. By the way, she's also spouting much more practical expressions such as "more cookie."
I think I must go have more cookie. Very useful phrase!
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