9 June 2003

Living Pert Near Paris

The first time I used the word pert near (almost there), my darling husband started to laugh.  He had lived in Southeast Ohio for a long time, but he was connected to Ohio University.  We all know what snobs those folks are so I didn’t care if he understood such words as pert near, crick  (creek) or holler (hollow where the creek is located).   Speaking in Southeast Ohio jargon, as they say, is my first language and it brings me comfort and helps me express myself sometimes when there are no other words that will do.

It’s not that I always talk like that.  But sometimes when I go back to the hills and smell the grass or hang out in the woods my ancestor’s teachings just wash right over me.  When those times happen I revert back to a way of talking that reflects what I heard from my grandparents when I was growing up. 

So I set out to find the equivalent of these country words in French.  Now don’t go thinking that I can speak French.  I cannot.  As time goes by I am able to read some of the language, and pick out words and phrases from certain people’s speech.   I do want to speak French, but I’ve either started too late in life or come from the wrong place to get that language roaming around in my head.

First of all, there is hardly a French word that sounds like it’s spelled.  For instance if I want to say “It is a beautiful day” I would say “Il fait beau aujourd’hui” pronounced “ill fay bow o ja dwee”.  How in the world do they get that out of that?  You get the picture.

Second I have to confess that I love hearing French spoken and I like to try to speak as well.  Hundreds of words in English come from French.  Anything ending in “tion” like foundation, situation, and pronunciation all come from here.  However, the way they are pronounced sounds nothing like English.  And sometimes the English word doesn’t mean the same thing as the French word. For instance, “intoxication” means food poisoning or “encore” means more of something (more water in my glass). 

I haven’t given up learning to speak French, but I keep thinking if I could find the simple words like my grandparents used my brain might be able to make sense of what I am hearing.  Now all that happens is that when I hear a French word I haven’t heard before I usually ask how they spell it so I can see it in my brain.  People look dumbfounded at this request, but they are polite so they comply.  Seeing it in my head does help sometimes, but then they speak so quickly after spelling the word, that everything is lost to me before I have a chance to think.

Plus I haven’t found any simple words to describe anything.  French is not a language of the commoners.  It is a beautiful elegant language.  Words like pert near are nowhere to be found.

My brain keeps trying to make sense of being in a place where I don’t know the language.  It all boils down to blaming my parents, the Columbus Public School System, and my seventh grade French teacher.  If they’d only placed more importance on learning other languages I might be able to communicate now.  I have to blame somebody.