Why Europe Rocks: Reason #22

Dudi and Luc at last year's Easter

Say what?

So, Nate and I went to Lucka's family for Easter, and Lucka has this cute cute 4 year old nephew named Daniel (aka Dudi). During the meal we were going back between Czech, Ponasemu* and English and Dudi looks at me, says something in Ponasemu and then says, "mwauuu wau blah blah blah." Lucka busts up laughing, "He's translating for you into English!" It was awesome. And it serves me right. I have a confession to make...I kinda mock Ponasemu. Ponasmu is a pidgin language that exists in these parts as a mix of Czech, Polish and German. If I want to speak Ponasemu, I just speak Czech with a Polish accent and whatever Polish words I know and plenty of "ganz" (I guess that's German for "really"). Basically, that means switching Hs and Gs, Ls and Ws, and "tak" for yes and "ni" for no. It's mostly entertaining, hopefully inoffensive, but possibly annoying (although probably not as annoying as me and my Italian accent, and for sure not as annoying as Nate and his Iowa slams...like AZ is all that).

Okay, let's try it out
EN: You have a nice sweater, did you knit it yourself?
CZ: Mash hezkee svetr, pletla yeesee toe saamaa?
PNM: Mosh heyzkay svitor, pwetwa yestesh toe soma?

Ha ha ha! It's so funny! Well...if you're not as amused as I, check out these language videos or Nate's Polish hymn blog: http://natedoggblogg.blogspot.com/2006/06/polish-worship.html

The Interpretor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncirovhlQcw

Joey speaking French: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2JhCejhcEg

(real PNM: Mosh peeyeknee svetr, ushtreekovawa? Gosh.)