Installing (culture) shock absorbers
 Greetings are really fascinating to Linguists, as they are often
culturally specific, quite colourful, and sometimes very elaborate.
Under the program of monthly presentations of postgraduates of our
academic department, once there was a presentation of a speaker of Zarma,
a language of African Niger. To start off his speech, one of our
professor offered the speaker a greeting in Zarma, fufu, which is
roughly equivalent to simple “Hi!”. The speaker responded with ba:n sami
wo:la (the colons indicate long vowels, “baan samee woluh”). This is a
much more complex phrase, translating down to something roughly like
“God be praised, my health is without problems”. The speaker explained
to us that the fufu, ba:n sami wo:la interaction is a normal way of
carrying out a greeting in Zarma.
This response reminded me how we usually respond to a greeting in
Sinhala. In Sinhala we greet people as ‘kohomada’ and the usual respond
might be either ‘waradak naha’ or hondin innawa’ or both. A person might
also respond as ‘deyyange pihiten hondin innawa’. Therefore, this Zarma
issue was not much an ‘issue’ for me.
 But for my Aussie colleagues it was a bit pretentious. “What would
they care how you were doing, all they said was “Hi”” kind of feeling
was written on their faces.
After all, English is no less pretentious, they are just more used to
their system. Generally, at least in their bit of the English speaking
world, a greeting includes some variety of “How are you?/What’s up?”
interaction. First, the first person puts out a “how are you?”, the
second person gives a generic answer, then asks the first person the
same question back, and the first person answers generically. Only once
that’s out of the way can a conversation begin.
Perhaps what is missing from the Zarma greeting, in their culturally
biased eyes, is the return question. It is not “Hi”, “I’m healthy, are
you?”, “I am too”. It does not seem, based on the simple interaction
that the second participant actually cares about the first person.
The trouble with that point of view is that English speakers do not
actually care how you are doing or what is up, either. Take, for
example, this made-up interaction: (Fred walks into a pharmacy and an
attendant comes in to help him)
FRED: Hey
SHOPKEEPER: Hi, How are you today?
FRED: Well, actually, my prostate’s been acting up, so it’s an
hour and a half of pain any time I have to go to the bathroom. Oh, and
my dog died last week. So yeah, I’m having a tough time of it. How about
you?
SHOPKEEPER: (extended pause) …I’m good
It is an unspoken rule that in general exists in the English speaking
world (for me, in Australia), when somebody asks you how you are doing
(or what’s up), they really, genuinely, don’t care. |
