Language and Embarrassment

As we've been traveling along, Ben and I have been continually embarrassed by how many languages - especially English - the Norwegian people are fluent in, compared to Ben's two languages (English and Spanish) and my one and a half (English and terrible Spanish). Part of the reason for the amazing proficiency in English in the country is that many American TV shows that air here are subtitled rather than dubbed, so people hear English being spoken all the time. Not only that: knowing other languages is a source of pride for the people we've met. Everyone asks, "how is my English?" and many of our conversations consist of trading idioms. For example, Wieb, a Dutch cyclist we met today on our route, was highly interested in the fact that we used the phrase "goose bumps" rather than "chicken skin." And it's not only English. Adrian, who we ate breakfast with this morning, knows Italian, Spanish, English, French, and Norwegian, some of which simply because he studied them in school. Even after all my Spanish classes, yo still no hablo. Part of the reason for our inefficiency in learning Norwegian, at least, is that the pronunciation of words changes in every town we visit. We asked an oil-rig diver how to say some key words - like "food" - and he gave us a different word for each region of Norway we would visit. There are even two completely different words for the number seven, neither of which I remember. We see the regional linguistic differences most prominently in how people say "hello." The main salutation is "hei," which Ben pronounces "hi" and I pronounce "hey." Yet no two Norwegians say it alike. "Heeey," "heigh," "hay" - we've heard it every which way, and in Egersund, where we're camped now, they've even started saying "hallo." Yet, somehow, even with all these different ways of saying the word, just by hearing Ben and me say "hei," every single Norwegian has immediately known we are American. Guess we just have to keep practicing.

- Joe
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