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Tags: Discrimination | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Einarr Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom einarrslanguagelog.w Joined 4394 days ago 118 posts - 269 votes  Speaks: English, Bulgarian*, French, Russian Studies: Swedish | Message 1 of 119 04 December 2013 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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attracted strange looks or dare I say discrimination for speaking a certain language?
Today I experienced the strangest thing, as I had to subscribe for a GP at my local surgery. As I was waiting with a mate for one of us to be called we were chatting in Bulgarian (in low voice, just saying that we weren't shouting or anything :D) and I noticed something that has, of course happened before as a young girl stared at us with the wtf? expression on her face. I was like nothing new here, as it happens all the time. Anyway, what I was not prepared for was the reaction of the nurse which heard us speaking in Bulgarian. First off she called me Karol (that has a story to it, that's why I'm mentioning it) which obviously isn't my name, and by obvious I mean any sane person without poor sight would not even get close to getting it wrong. Anyway I kindly told her the French equivalent of my name and the miracle happened, she managed to recall the local pronunciation for it. As I sat she was like "are you working here", to which I replied that I still don't, so then she instantly switched to "am I taking money from the social system", which I'm not and God forbid I won't and answered that I posses my own funds. Then she started bragging how there're plenty of lazy people around here that drain the social system off the loyal taxpayer and so on and how her neighborhood is filled with Polish people, and it used to be a lovely place before that. That's why I mentioned the name she called me first, since it's quite popular Polish name I believe. Up to that point I was quite fed up with all that, and then she asked me how to write Bulgaria, as she didn't know? Later on I got to understand that she asked my friend (who entered right before me) the very same thing. It was all so appalling, not to mention the generalizations she made. Just tonight as I was out with that same friend of mine we decided to speak in English alone when going out, in order not to get stares which occur almost every time I speak in Bulgarian outside and in addition to that I try to do it in American accent as more neutral (just in case). So yes, I might be overreacting a bit, but it was definitely not a pleasant experience to be treated like that just because of the language I speak (not to mention because of where I come from). I mean she commented on me speaking English "very well", but come on. So have you guys ever experienced anything similar somewhere? Feel free to share your stories. 16 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 119 04 December 2013 at 12:36am | IP Logged |
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The worst I got was when I was a Czech friend and we were having a typical conversation in Czech (from her side) and Slovak (from my side) while riding a bus in my hometown (a fairly large city with enough foreigners who don't often use English among themselves). Some idiotic passengers (drunks? patients from a mental hospital?) assumed that we were talking behind their back using a language that they couldn't understand and insisted that we switch to English. Even though we had stopped, one of the passengers eventually smacked my friend in the face for being "ғц¢ќïň' foreigners" and threatened to sick her dog on us before being kicked off by the driver.
I heard once that God takes care of drunks and lunatics... 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7002 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 3 of 119 04 December 2013 at 1:07am | IP Logged |
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In the university I heard one girl say to a boy and another girl some acrimonious statements about foreign students. She talked out loud about why do foreigners have to be at the university. Due to the fact I look Asian and they don't know I was born and raised in Canada the other girl saw me in their vicinity and immediately interjected SHH! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5923 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 4 of 119 04 December 2013 at 1:15am | IP Logged |
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I wonder how often some of the weird looks that people speaking foreign languages attract are not necessarily "wtf?" expressions from xenophobes, but rather looks of curiosity, perhaps thinking something along the lines of "oh, that's not [English/predominant language of the setting], I wonder what they're speaking/where they're from." I'm certain that I've given people this kind of look before, such as just the other day when I was standing in the airport security line and heard the family behind me speaking Greek. At first it didn't register what language it was, so I rather too conspicuously turned around to listen more closely, giving the mother what was probably a very strange look. I considered asking them in Greek where they were from or where they were headed so they would realize that it was simply an expression of surprise at hearing Greek being spoken instead of a look of contempt for foreigners, but didn't get the chance. I still feel bad...
However, it's hard to argue with the second part of your story, and Chung's story from the bus. I've had many similar experiences to those. On one occasion, a friend and I were riding the tram in Zagreb and chatting in German, and the two boys sitting across from us got very upset and ended up flipping us off because they thought we were talking about them. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| gRodriguez Triglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3809 days ago 44 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2, Galician Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 5 of 119 04 December 2013 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
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I'm going to San Francisco this Friday, let's see if something happens, but considering
how common Spanish is in the United States (especially in places like California and Miami) people won't get surprised since they probably won't notice the difference between Portuguese and Spanish. I will probably just get some "kind of racist" stares, because I'm white and most Hispanics are mixed. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4790 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 119 04 December 2013 at 2:31am | IP Logged |
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I was once in a bit similar situation related to the language (but smaller insults coming from expectations that the Czech Republic is somewhere in Russia and the people live in the middle ages are quite common). We were in the UK with the highschool for two weeks. We lived in families. A friend of mine and I were in an awesome family. Awesome but one member: a spoiled girl, nine or ten years old. Spoiled in several quite well visible areas and an arrogant teenage school star to be. There were several conversations like: "Tell me something in Hungarian. What did you just tell her in Hungarian?" "We are not hungarian. We are czech." "Doesn't matter. What is it like in Hungary?". It's not that I'd have anything against Hungary. It just didn't seem polite towards the guests who were spending two weeks in her home. And it felt very unpleasant.
P.S. A lot of foreigners anywhere were asking me and my companion(s) whether we were speaking in Hungarian :-D But I heard a friend of the family telling a worse story. She lived with her family in Germany (ten years ago or so). She was speaking with her children in Czech when travelling in a train just as it was the language used at home. And someone sitting nearby was horrified when she proved to speak excellent German. The lady was horrified that the mother, despite not having to, insisted on her children knowing Czech as if it could harm their assimilation of higher language and culture-German. She was asking why and just couldn't understand. Really, these situations are not rare. Because stupid, arrogant people are not rare. Nationalists (those with such an agressive attitude) are usually people who have nothing to be proud of when it comes to themselves. So they desperately need to identify with a larger body-their nation and to prove to the others that their nations are worse and therefore they are worse and less valuable people than the Nationalist. And the language is just an easy identification marker, easy enough for the stupid Nationalist to notice. Nothing new under the sun. I think the Slavic languages are one of the groups with a stigma that is easy to target. But it might take only a few good music groups with great PR that would choose their language over English, and it could be different. It's that simple and superficial. :-D 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5156 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 7 of 119 04 December 2013 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
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I was in a nice restaurant for a Spanish meetup with two other Americans. We were speaking Spanish. There are very few Latinos in my area. I could hear two guys fairly close to us and referring to us as illegal immigrants and Mexicans. I actually thought it was quite funny because none of us look anything like Mexicans and these guys must have been idiots. It also made made me feel a bit sad because if I were a Mexican I would have been insulted that they assume all Mexicans are illegal immigrants.
I too had an experience very similar to ellasevia when I heard two guys speaking Spanish... I ended up talking to them, in part, because I did not want them to think I was staring at them and giving them a wtf look. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5161 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 8 of 119 04 December 2013 at 6:16am | IP Logged |
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I think it's sadly universal that some small minded people will make a lot of unpleasant assumptions when hearing another language. Where I live in the US there is a lot of Spanish and a fair amount of Russian spoken. I personally haven't witnessed people giving others a hard time but I have heard of it and have no doubt it happens.
Fortunately there are a lot of nice people to balance out the jerks! I think the nice people outnumber the not so nice, but the not so nice are just noiser sometimes. gRodriguez, I grew up near SF and I don't think anyone will bat an eye at you, whatever language you are speaking. San Francisco is quite diverse and a great city to visit. Have fun! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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