Was riding along in a truck today with a man from eastern Africa. He was talking with another woman from the same place. The language they shared was either Somali or Afar, I couldn't tell for sure.
Crux of the issue was that some laundry bags went missing. Or, rather, they were transported to another laundry facility in error. This man thought my bag was the only one. Nope. The woman stopped us from leaving, shouting and holding more laundry bags.
My friendly driver started yelling at her, more like with her, I'm sure about these bags ending up in the wrong place. I was listening to their language when in the middle of these discussions I heard "What is this shit?"
So, either there are words in Somali or Afar that sound like /wʌt ɪz ðɪs ʃɪt/ or my friend was code-switching. Granted, his love of that phrase (he said it at least half a dozen times in one conversation) may simply be borrowing, vice code-switching (or code-mixing), but still, it threw me for a loop and I've been giggling all day. Nice to have a laugh daily!
No comments:
Post a Comment