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Nelson Mandela said: "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. But, if you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
Wise words, but I doubt even he could parlez vous, sprechen sie, wie geht's or hanyu on a whim.
It is now standard practice that few know the difference between their and there, but what baffles me is how singular becomes plural in one sentence.
As in, "I was chatting to X at the mall," and suddenly there is a crowd, and "they", not he, "told me that...."
I won't go into you and you's or yous' as that has been a problem for years.
Of course, I will now discourse on the motley crew who arrive here from every country, each with their/there own variety of languages.
What I will always be grateful for is that English is thee universal language and usually one of the couple or group is able to communicate in English.
A Frenchman succinctly said to me: "If you want to travel and can't speak English then you are stuffed."
A snag is that if I say: "Welcome. How are you? Is this your first visit to South Africa?" or anything along those lines, this has to be interpreted to the rest, into their mother tongue.
They then smile and nod, which is lovely, confirming that I was not being rude. So nothing was 'lost in translation.'
Such as the American linguistics professor who said: "I know that Afrikaans is a language spoken over here and I know a smattering of this. But, at the airport I overheard a gentleman say to another - buy a donkey. Do you also find this extremely odd?"
Many guests insist on translating from their tablets which is very tiring. It may take an hour to order a pizza.
I was discussing this dilemma with a jovial Indian gentleman, when there was a cricket break on TV, and he told me that in India, their language revolves around three words only - Curry, Worry and Hurry.
One may also chew your ear off on how to remove a brain tumour, but when I ask: "Would you like to pay cash or with your credit card, one then cannot understand and can no longer speaka thee Inglish.
