I thought this deserved a little blog of it's own as it has become quite the topic of conversation over here.
The first taught language in Singapore is English which is great for me as my language skills in Japanese, Chinese etc are a little rusty! The English they speak here has a little twist to it though so they call it 'Singlish' and even sell books on how to translate it! It is quite similar to Scottish in that they say things like "how come you're late?" instead of "why are you late?" so its pretty simple to understand for us.
Now I am in the middle of my third week here in DHL Singapore and I think my Scottish is somehow becoming stronger! When talking to my friend Iris from Germany I can see the sheer concentration on her face as she is listening to my twang. I was talking about something or other and was using the word "girl" quite a lot. After the punch line Iris didn't seem to be satisfied at the end of the story and looked pretty puzzled. After asking why she was so confused she revealed that she thought I was saying "ghetto" and not "girl" and if you had heard the story, you could probably understand her confusion! Another common communication problem Iris and I have are with the days of the week. I say "Wednesday" and she thinks I am saying "Wedding day" so our conversations take a little longer than usual but always end in a few laughs at what she thinks I am saying and what I am actually saying!
Australian's in particular are also finding my twang a little hard to translate which is difficult as a high percentage of my office are from down under! My new method is saying everything Americanised which seems to be working pretty well so far after one hour of implementation :-)
After listening to me talk for three weeks now, my colleagues have determined that I do not speak English but 'Scotlish'. They believe Scottish is not a language and we have all made it up! They say all this but after my advertising of Scotland, they now all want to come over next year so the language can't be bad enough to deter them from 'roamin' in the gloamin' or chasin' a wee haggi' oor a field!
The languages and accent's here are all so diverse. So far I have heard Japanese, Chinese, Mandarin, Australian, German, French, Polish, English and a lot of Americans. Only one missing for me is Scottish :-( I have not met or heard one Scottish tourist or expat (moved here from other country) here yet! Normally this doesn't bother me so maybe it's just because I am away from family and friends and I miss a bit of home comforts in the form of the twang! There is a Scottish bar called the Highlander down at Clarke Quay (a little mini Ibiza) but after passing and having a snoop in, there was no Scot's to be heard!
Well the search will continue, they must have all found a nice puddle to sit in that I am not aware of yet!
Natalie