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Grappling
with English
Mary Terzian
I always knew I wanted to write, but in whose voice? Children were
not granted a hearing in our home in Cairo. For a while, stifled pre-teen
feelings poured out into poems that I hid tightly, for fear of being found out.
Free time was to be spent on homework-- or housework for that matter.
Wasn't that the real calling for girls? Most poets died of poverty anyway,
or tuberculosis-- fashionably called consumption then-- or some such plague.
Those who didn't were of doubtful fame. The prospect of such an inglorious
demise led my ambitions into grave thoughts. I buried my voice, but not my
idea of becoming a writer.
Attendance at an English high school changed my prospects. I could read
and write to my heart's content and pass my activities for homework.
Nobody understood English at home. I worked on class assignments with
enthusiasm, embellishing essays with ethnic thoughts and warped expressions
directly translated from my mother tongue. In those days when the
"sun never set on the British Empire," the English language was
beleaguered with every colonial patois, mine included. Yes, the teacher's
red ink flowed abundantly. Words could be learned easily, but capturing
the soul of a language was a different matter.
Unlike writers in English, we, the foreign born, start at the sub-zero level of
pen pushing. The natural flow of mother tongue has to yield to a total
shift in thought patterns, syntax, logic-- why mice instead of mouses?-- and a
complete abandon of pronunciation rules. Learning the alphabet is no
guarantee for reading English with the correct articulation.
So becoming a writer is not an overnight achievement for us. It is a leap
of faith in the dark. In the absence of immersion in the language,
readings help toward the correct usage of language. Writing, however,
carries the impact of a literal translation from the mother tongue. After
half a century of speaking English fluently, I still find myself giving birth to
expressions that borrow from the ethnic mentality. To overcome this hurdle,
I write my piece as it flows out of the brain, crude in format, verb last or
first, interspersed with foreign words and a mélange of idiomatic expressions
only I can decipher. In my haste to catch the fleeting flashes of
luminosity, I write down anything that strikes the fancy. Later, in a more sober
ruminating mood, I recall the English cell on my brain, to translate the Morse
code of my inspiration into a readable article. Yet, pockets of ignorance
in my knowledge still cause hardships-- tidbits like nursery rhymes, songs, old
movies, storybook characters. A foreign language can be brought into one's
life but it cannot alter one's upbringing.
The interesting phenomenon is that over time, the predominant vernacular, which
is now English, prevails. Then the reverse course begins. Thoughts articulated
in the ethnic dialect sound peculiar, carrying borrowed expressions that bear a
foreign stamp, like implants on the body. This hopping from one language
to the other is not without its benefits. The mind is a vast field of knowledge
that needs to be constantly revamped in order to remain productive. In the
crisscrossing process new avenues of thoughts open up that give the writing
voice a unique timbre.
If we foreign-born writers are lucky, we don't go postal. We go global.
Mary Terzian (http://www.Maryterzian.com)
was born and brought up in Egypt in an Armenian home. Her first Armenian
article was published in 1962 in the "Arev" daily of Cairo. She
worked with the United Nations in Egypt, Congo and Togo and has traveled
extensively. She immigrated to the United States in 1967, retired from the
Aerospace Industry and is now a freelance writer, residing in California.
Her articles in English have appeared in several newspapers, magazines and e-zines.
She is the recipient of, among others awards, the 2001 Rosenthal Scholarship
granted by PEN USA West. Her book, tentatively entitled "The
Refugee's Daughter," depicting the insecurities of refugee life in Cairo
during World War II and the ensuing political turmoil, is under review by a book
agent. Mary can be reached at Nayri@aol.com.
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