A sultana and some fairy floss

It's been a while since I've perseverated on linguistic issues in this blog (no, the last post doesn't count as perseveration. It's a fine line...)

That's mainly because, since we left Tibet, we've been firmly ensconced in English-language sorts of tourism, and way too much has been written about the semantics of the Indian head-bob or the syntactical rules that govern Singlish (, lah). Having figured out the former, to a greater or lesser degree, and having enjoyed the realization that the latter is absolutely essential for communication in Singapore (even for an ang mo like me), we figured we'd land in Australia and be set. Comfortable.

After all, World English may be a fascinating topic in some circles, but this is Australia. They speak English, right? Just like the rest of us, right? There's no Hindi or Chinese or Malay or Tamil to pollute these pristine linguistic waters.

Right?

It's harder to get around in this country's language than either of the other two. Sure, the alphabet isn't hung, dangling off a diaphanous horizontal line. But that's about all the help we got. And we were shocked at how ununderstandable Australian English was. It wasn't that we hadn't been exposed to English from Down Under. But, that English had, evidently, been tempered in those who spoke it by the fact that they lived Up Over.

Down Under, though, things are different. Countless times, we've overheard a conversation in a bus or elevator or Opera House, and automatically assumed those involved were speaking some Germanic language. Until they weren't, until our minds parsed, and the realization dawned that we could actually understand them.

The reverse has been true. Just yesterday, we were behind a Russian couple. I could have sworn they were speaking Australian English. Until they weren't.

See, it's not just the pronunciation that's different. Yes, um becomes aam and rhymes with ham. Yes, the r is absent unless it's followed by a vowel, and then it's there even when it's not supposed to be (droring?). But it's also an entirely different lexical world you're up against.

A schooner, for example. Yes, it's a fore- and aft-rigged sailing vessel. Except when it means a tall glass of beer.

A sultana doesn't wed the ruler of a small desert state. Here, she's a raisin. And raisin is simply not understood.

A hotel—well, yes, you can book beds in it. Except when it's not a hotel and transforms, instead, into a multi-storied beer garden with pool tables and meeting rooms.

And fairy floss, unlike pork floss, is not the end-result of a rendering plant (though that would explain where all the fairies went). No. It's justs a slightly more embarrassing way to order cotton candy.

Finally, there's the word squizzy. When we first heard it used in the sentence, "We can go have a squizzy," we weren't sure whether to shrink in disgust, to report the man saying it for a medical check-up, or to wonder what sorts of things he did when he was home alone.

A squizzy, we were happy to find out, is not communicable. It's simply "a look-see." I guess this is what happens when you incarcerate a certain subset of your society on an island as far away from anywhere as you can find, and then leave them be.

In the meantime, we've started catching up on all our pictures. Tibet is uploaded (though not labelled too completely yet). Have a squizzy.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go grab myself a schooner from the local hotel.

The names of God

We take it for granted that we should be able to call God by whatever name we choose to use. It's unthinkable to our western minds that such a personal thing should be subject to the whims of legislation.

But, this is one of the many illusions we've been disabused of during these travels. In Malaysia, at least in public worship and in press, there has been a governmental push to prevent Christians from using the word "Allah" to refer to God.

The reasoning? The use of the word "Allah" by Christians is "designed to confuse Muslims." Those wily Catholics!

This assertion is notwithstanding the fact that the word itself is used by Arabic-language speakers of all three Abrahamic faiths and was probably used within the Arabic world before the arrival of Islam (thereby confusing the pre-Muslims of the time, poor souls.) But, there's a bigger problem: see, there really isn't another word in many languages for God. In Bahasa Malaysia, for example, Allah means god, and Tuham, the word that the government is allowing the publications and churches to use, means lord; it can be used of political leaders as well. So, preventing non-Muslims from using the word may be tantamount to an Orwellian attempt at curtailing religious conceptions of God. (Yes, you're welcome to argue with me on the merits of linguistic determinism, but still, it's worth mentioning).

Regardless of the reasoning, though, what's most striking is that a nation so economically and politically advanced should be so subject to the vagaries of theocracy and racial politicking. It's not just the Christians either: while we were in Malaysia, for example, the capital was wracked by demonstrations led by Hindu groups claiming underrepresentation in a country that is only 60% Malay. (Don't even get me started on what the Malaysian constitution requires for you to be considered Malay.) The demonstrations were followed by voluminous editorials detailing exactly how "embarrassing" they were, how the lawyers that led them were a blight on their profession, and how of course there was no discrimination in Malaysia. How could there be?

It was hard not to be shocked.

I would be remiss not to mention, however, that, sometime between the time I started writing this post and the time I finished editing it (oh, the timing!), The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur's office sued The Ministry of Internal Security. The latter appears to have backed down and permitted the use of the word "Allah" in the Catholic Herald for at least another year. It's unclear to me what happened to the churches similarly affected.

Meanwhile, after spending time in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Taichung, Manila, and Palau with friends and family, we've finally crossed the equator for the first time this trip. We're currently in Cairns, where we've had to figure out the haphazard flipping that entails driving on the other side of the road (you're sitting on the right, sure, but the gear-shift is still ordered from left to right, and the pedals are still right-foot dominant; the blinkers, lights, and windshield wipers, though, have been swapped. I can't tell you how many times we've accidentally expelled wiper fluid instead of telling the bemused drivers behind us that we're turning).

And, despite finding ourselves blinded by the ubiquitous beach culture, the diving here is unbelievably spectacular. It almost makes you forget exactly how many pasty-white, over-fed, poorly-tattooed, shirtless bellies you find yourself subjected to.

Perhaps that should be subject to the whims of legislation.