True Form : Congenital Swahili
When my children reached the age where they could actually communicated with something other than crying, they made memory after memory with their own dialect of the Spanglish being taught to them.
Merry Christmas was 'Happy Kikabo'
Santa Clause was 'Kia Kah'
and Christmas lights were called 'Kika Light'
One of the most difficult to decipher was a loud proclamation by my daughter. She would throw her hands in the air and yell 'Peetoppio!'. We eventually learned that she was calling out for Pinnochio like Geppetto did in the feature animated film.
Eventually, I was able to trace the origin of their accents to a small tribe in early 19th century Africa. The nuances of the dialect were earmarked by distinct letter replacements throughout a modern day English vocabulary. To throw us off the scent, it sounded as if it were rushed through a swahili translator.
It became evident that we had taken our children's common sense for granted. We had made the mistake of assuming that they were aware of the country in which they were born and that the primary language in the USA is indeed English. This moment was defined by my daughter. She announced from the backseat of the car that she could see the ocean from her carseat in the backseat. Since the ocean was nowhere within the scope of the vehicle, we had to ask her where she saw the ocean. She pointed to the sky.
Her understanding of what the ocean was had somehow registered in the impressionable connections of her mind as the sky ...or any large area of blue for all we could assum at that point.
We shouldn't have been surprised. My parent's can barely understand my language to this day.
Merry Christmas was 'Happy Kikabo'
Santa Clause was 'Kia Kah'
and Christmas lights were called 'Kika Light'
One of the most difficult to decipher was a loud proclamation by my daughter. She would throw her hands in the air and yell 'Peetoppio!'. We eventually learned that she was calling out for Pinnochio like Geppetto did in the feature animated film.
Eventually, I was able to trace the origin of their accents to a small tribe in early 19th century Africa. The nuances of the dialect were earmarked by distinct letter replacements throughout a modern day English vocabulary. To throw us off the scent, it sounded as if it were rushed through a swahili translator.
It became evident that we had taken our children's common sense for granted. We had made the mistake of assuming that they were aware of the country in which they were born and that the primary language in the USA is indeed English. This moment was defined by my daughter. She announced from the backseat of the car that she could see the ocean from her carseat in the backseat. Since the ocean was nowhere within the scope of the vehicle, we had to ask her where she saw the ocean. She pointed to the sky.
Her understanding of what the ocean was had somehow registered in the impressionable connections of her mind as the sky ...or any large area of blue for all we could assum at that point.
We shouldn't have been surprised. My parent's can barely understand my language to this day.
posted by toonbug at 6:43 AM
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