There are just some things in Urdu/Hindi that I will never get. Sadly, many of them I won’t even notice because they are layered cultural references or belong to specific regional accents, and I don’t even catch them. So they are lost on me. Sometimes in a foreign language there is what you understand and there is what people are really saying…and you as a non-native speaker cannot judge the discrepancy between the two. This happens due to a simple lack of acuity with second language listening comprehension skills related to level and proficiency, but also due missed to cultural cues. Other times, you catch the cue and realize there is some deeper meaning at work, but don’t get the reference as a cultural oustider. Some cultural references crop up again and again. But I never ask about them or google them because it would be awkward to stop a group of people in the midst of their chuckle filled conversation just to ask “Who is Mugambo?” “Mugambo KYON itna khush hua?” And in my busy day filled with sporadic net surfing, the name Mugambo never pops into my brain. And so I don’t remember Mugambo until someone mentions this mysterious name again!
Still, I start to paste pictures together. Light bulbs go off months after I hear an expression or cultural reference because its meaning finally becomes clear to me by some uncanny incident or occurence. A realization sinks in. Silently, I will affirm to myself: “Oh, so that’s why he said so-and-so looks like a Pashtoon film star in that outfit.” “Ah hah! So this is a mutiar!” I will know where someone is from when they say “Mereko udhar-ich mila.”
I become ‘in the know’ in that ungainly way of a non-native speaker. It would be too silly for me to use such expressions myself…I would feel disingenuous. I am too much of an “FOB” so to speak. I would be like the guy who says “That is a sucks, yaar!” Instead of “that sucks.” How long would my husband have to live in Texas to be able to say y’all? My New York dialect speaking parents don’t say y’all after 30 years in Texas. Can a des-raised Pakistani say y’all if he has Pakistani-accented English? Is that okay? Does it sound phony? Do you see what I mean? Maybe my husband will love the Texan accent and go Southern all the way when we move there. Yee-haw. He has a des-raised cousin in another Southern American state who has a very interesting convent educated Pakistani English-small town Southern American English accent combo. I think he says y’all. Anyway, I still don’t feel proficient enough to actually use such references or special expressions unless there is some humor in the fact that a foreigner is saying them (maiN teri aisi ki taisi kar doongi!!!), but at at least I will know what the heck the references mean.
And so I keep building my repertoire.
Guess what? There is a blog post that explains Mugambo! If only I had known before. But then I feel sheepish, googling up Mugambo, watching Mugambo youtube videos, just so next time I will ‘get it’ when someone says “Mugambo khush hua.”
November 4, 2009 at 8:57 am
Mugambo khush hua with your post…
November 5, 2009 at 1:27 am
Mugambo Khush huwa …..
Once u start using it, you love pleasure of this slang…
November 5, 2009 at 4:59 am
Hmmm – I suspect there are native speakers who also don’t get layered cultural references or specific regional accents.
It’s nice when it all comes together, though. My breakthrough in German was when I realized I was constructing words (German is a lego-language – several words combine to create a new word) as I needed to convey ideas, and they were considered perfectly acceptable by native speakers.
November 5, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I learnt some hindi phrases from watching bollywood movies growing up and “Mugambo khush hua” is one of the *staples*
)
LOL.
November 6, 2009 at 6:16 am
Good attitude, especially considering you are at least conversational in the language. I have seen converts to Islam adopt foreign accents and such phrases even though they couldnt string together more than one sentence in a different language.
This subject always reminds me of the one convert blogger who’d type “ya’ani” in their posts. Their excuse was that they were married to an Arab, even though they didnt speak Arabic at all.
Things like this take a very long time for non native speakers to pick and use naturally, not to be seen as affectations and ignorant/pompous or just seen as trying too hard or being a poseur.
It is pretty easy to notice if it is natural or not.
@Gori Girl,
I speak German, I was born there. We love to string together words to make new words or phrases. I once read that the longest word in German is 50 some letters long and is for a widow of a captain of a boat that sails on the Rhine.
November 7, 2009 at 6:47 am
I love the describtion of German as “lego” language!
Back to the topic, I was wondering about this myself but in a slightly different context. I wonder whether “native speakers” of languages that are used by foreigners as a matter of fact and languages that have a lot of different versions from different countries like English, French, Spanish are more tolerant to the foreigners using slang expressions than native speakers from less “popular” languages. I had an American firend married to a Polish living in Poland for years. He spoke Polish but with a heavy accent. He loved to dig out regional words and using very slang expressions and each time he did it made me jump. He thought it made him more Polish… it didn’t, it was funny in a weird way. So I still wonder about it the other way round.
November 7, 2009 at 8:51 pm
~mugambo’s booming laughter~
November 14, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Very intereting post! I’ve never heard of mugambo before
Now, the ya’ll thing.. My husband has managed to pick up on pretty well but never realizes that he is saying it until I point it out. It won’t sound phony at all coming from a Desi, trust me. They do it without knowing it. 
Now, he points it out to me when I say it to the “elders” and it is frowned upon for some reason. I just haven’t figured yet why it is frowned upon (not frowned upon by dh but by the elders)… mmmm
December 2, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Salaam Alaikum,
I wonder if a big part of this is cultural, rather then lingusitic. For example, we’re both native English speakers, but if someone used the term “Number 8 wire mentality” to us, we’d both be baffled, whereas a New Zealander would get the cultural reference immediately, Yaa’ni*
*Used to annoy Abu Sinan ;p
June 12, 2010 at 6:02 am
I tend to agree wtih Safiya – I am a native English speaker but I often confused my English colleagues and friends with some of the expressions I used (such as a hot press or even red lemonade). Interestingly enough, I found that I adapted my English to become more British when I lived in England. Now that I am in Dubai I find what I call “Dubai English” creeping into my everyday speech.