Look Before You Speak

Sometimes, in an attempt to speak discreetly to someone else in a public place, we may try to speak in a language we assume others present will not understand.

Suppose you're on a flight going abroad with your family. You carefully eye the food cart coming towards you, but it pauses after reaching the row in front of you. You wait for what feels like hours to finally look at your parent and go, "Juice shesh hoye jachhe toh. Beshi kore chaile ki taka dite hobe? Ekhon bujhlam manush keno lukay khabar ante chay."

Little did you know, the flight attendant was a Bangladeshi too. To your bewilderment, she replies with "Apu, juice ta free. Taka diye juice flight e ante chaile bag check er shomoy fele dile toh abar loss," after which you melt down your seat, only to find out you don't have enough leg room to hide. Do planes offer pillows large enough to bury your whole face in so no one can see you throughout the remainder of your flight?

The potentially embarrassing situations pile up even after you reach your destination. You could be speaking in Bangla to a family member about how you plan to eat store-bought sandwiches as a dinner and not dine at the hotel. I mean, hotel dinners can be crazy expensive, so avoiding them would not be much of a stretch. What may, however, be an awkward surprise would be to discover that one of the hotel staff understood what you were saying. How? Don't ask me.

As inconvenient as it is when people hear or understand what you are saying when you would rather they did not, the fault is not with the language barrier, but with us. Sure, sometimes situations require you to talk to someone in confidence, but you can just as well speak to them later when you are alone with them. Not only is it sometimes considered rude to deliberately speak in a manner that is not understandable to others right in front of you, but sometimes people can misinterpret the general undertone of what you are saying as insulting.

For example, you work in customer service and have a native tongue different from that of the general population. You might be talking about how the weather is unpleasant but the customers you are serving may feel like you are talking about them. This may lead them to wonder if there is something wrong with them today, and could potentially make them feel belittled.

Similarly, in case you're on an international flight and there is an unruly child sitting in front of you, you might complain about this child to your friend or family member sitting next to you without others understanding. On the contrary, you could also just ask the flight attendant for a solution or very politely ask the person responsible for the child to help you out.

Communication can be hard, let us not complicate things further by bringing in unnecessary language barriers.   

Bushra Zaman likes books, art, and only being contacted by email. Find her at bushrazaman31@yahoo.com