Languages: Same But Different

“Oh, you know.” The German brunette pushed her glasses up her nose. “It’s like you Americans and the British.”

I felt my eyebrows squiggle a wrinkle right over my nose as I tried to grasp what she was telling me. “What do you mean?”

“Well, German from Germany is the real German, not like the Austrian German. Just like the British English is the correct English opposed to American English.”

My eyebrows discarded their wrinkle, rising high on my forehead, and I tried to swallow my offense down. I didn’t mind that she was proud of her country, but did she just say that my native English was not correct?

I forced a laugh out. “Oh, I just like to think that our two different styles of English are just different languages completely.”

The German girl didn’t look convinced. The conversation ended moments later as she awkwardly excused herself to talk to someone else.

But I’m convinced.

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the fun of living, working, and interacting with English speakers from the United Kingdom. We speak the same language supposedly.

But let me tell you. For a while, I had a moment once a day where someone had to translate the British English for me or vice versa for my fellow British English speakers in regards to my American English. Who would have thought that we could be speaking the exact same language and completely misunderstand each other?

It happens. More often than I care to admit honestly.

Mostly it’s simple things like, “Can you pick up the ore-ah-gah-no, bah-zil, and toe-mah-toe from the supermarket?”

And my brain spazzes out, forcing a clarifying question. “Do you mean ore-ray-geh-no, bay-zil, and toe-may-toe?”

Then we just look at each other with confusion. Isn’t that what I just said?

It’s small moments like these where I squint at my feet wondering when my ruby red slippers will appear and I expect the weight of a basket with a little black dog. Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

One thing I learned from these different moments is that it’s okay to have British English, American English, Australian English, New Zealand English. And I won’t be going around telling someone from Australia that their English is not the proper English. Sure, we’re speaking the same language, but it is different. Speaking of which, did you know that there’s Germany’s German, Austria’s German, and Switzerland’s German?

What About You?

Have you ever had a language moment that reminds you that your language isn’t the standard for all speakers?