The other night, when out drinking with Princess and his Thai friend T, I learned something very interesting about the boys’ ability to understand English.  I’ve actually had hints of this in the past, but never before has someone actually come out and point blank said it.  A couple of examples that come to mind are one boy would continually ask me to speak more slowly, while another said he could understand his German friend but not me.

T was trying to explain what he does for work.  He has a technical job having to do with a subject I’m quite familiar with.  I saw this is an opportunity to have some meaningful dialog with the boy, which is important as most can’t muster up anything beyond simple small talk.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t going well.  T’s English skills are not too strong, and he did not understand much of anything I said.

Princess intervened trying to interpret for T what I was saying.  It was at that point T explained his English is not that strong, but he could understand British much better than Americans.  He told me we speak very fast and string things together too much.  He gave the example of “did you eat yet,” explaining we Americans will say didjaeatyet.

Princess chimed in with agreement, and added that even those in Europe and Latin America, that speak English as their second language, are easier to understand.  I jokingly said, “Well, if you think we are bad, try talking to an Australian.”  T laughed and said, “OH! I do not understand anything they say.”

On a more serious note I explained to the boys that they are learning what is referred to as British, BBC, or the Queen’s English, which is one of two English standards in the world, the other being General American English.  Within each are mild to strong dialects, such as Geordie, Scouse, and Cockney, or Canadian, African American and Southern American.  My attempt to offer the boys a bigger picture on the subject of English didn’t seem to be of much interest to them.  The only reaction I got was from Princess, who said, “I understand Americans because I around you a lot.”

That said, it was a bit of an eye opener for me.  All my life I’ve struggled to understand those with strong dialects, but never realized my own flavor of English could be so difficult to understand by some.  So for you General American English speakers, and those with a strong dialect on the British English side, speak slowly and try to select words more common with British English.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

Now, before you Brits decide to chime in with your usual American bashing comments, I did some research and found these interesting details from Wikipedia.

If the British have any legitimate claim on the English language today it is that they wrote the book…literally.  And it is still in print!

English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France’s Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered “correct” or “incorrect” except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which the language is directed.

The impact of the English language globally has sometimes had a large impact on other languages, leading to language shift and even language death and to claims of “English Language Imperialism”.  English itself is now open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a whole.  For this reason, the English language is forever evolving.

English, as a whole, is the third most natively spoken language in the world, followed by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as “languages” or “dialects”).  While I did not see it stated anywhere it’s fairly obvious that of the non-native English speakers most speak the British English standard.

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million), Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.

Another KAOS party is scheduled for Saturday 7th August, 10pm - 6am.  Expect a mixed crowd of queer fetish deviants and tekno party people of all shapes and sizes.

The other day Princess and another boy were hanging out in the room.  Princess went to do something in the kitchen and accidentally knocked some things over, making a big noise.  The other boy looked over his shoulder at Princess and said, “Meeeooowww.”  I asked him why he said that and his reply was, “Cat do.”  I said, “I know that is sound of cat, but why you do?”  He explained it means that the cat did it, not Princess…”cat do.”

I was at the Balcony Pub drinking with Princess and one of his friends the other night.  At some point this really cute boy walked in and sat at the bar by himself.  Both Princess and I noticed, with great lust, when he walked in, and didn’t try to hide our interest in him from that point forward.  We were seated outside, which meant having to turn around to look at the boy, and it was obvious to him how often we would twist our necks in his direction.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

A little later the boy relocated to a table outside, and on street level, making it very easy to look at him from our elevated position.  Eventually, Princess started cheering the boy with his glass, and the boy would return the gesture.  This is how Thai boys let someone in a bar know they are interested.  After a few cheers, Princess asked the waiter to let the boy know he was invited to our table.  The waiter soon returned with the boy’s response, “I kreng jai him.”  In this particular case, that meant he was just being polite by cheering back and he was not interested in joining our party.

Princess said that it is quite common for Thais to “talk around” something and you are expected to know what it really means.  In other words, a lot of communication between Thais requires the ability to read between the lines.  I immediately understood what Princess was saying, but had never really thought about it in that way before.  It is actually no surprise when you consider this is a society that goes out of its way to avoid offending one another.  Thus, this method of communication is well suited to the practice of kreng jai.

As it turns out, Princess noticed the boy had moved outside to strategically position himself near a younger (20’s) farang, who was sitting one table away.  He had seated himself facing into the bar, which we originally assumed was for our benefit.  But after Princess pointed out what was really going on it was obvious the boy had positioned himself so he and the young farang would not have to do any neck twisting to make eye contact.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the boy was seated next to the young farang, whom he eventually departed with.  Just as well.  Princess also informed me that the boy was high as a kite on ice (methamphetamines).  After removing my rose colored glasses and taking another look I realized Princess was absolutely correct.  The boy was seriously tweeking.  But I digress.

This form of communication is second nature for Thais.  They are wired to automatically look for hidden meanings in conversation.  Thus, it begs the question.  Do they listen to what we English speaking westerners are saying with the same mindset?  Is it one of the reasons why we often encounter a miscommunication?  I wrote once before about how the boys would often communicate in a way that appeared as if they were expecting me to connect the dots.  It doesn’t come natural for me to examine everything spoken for its potential hidden meaning.  And it is one trick this old dog might not be up for learning.