Natives

Natives

Today I abandoned my usual duties in order to act as ambassador for the Lanark Academy. This is an annual event whereby a bunch of native children are bussed in and offered elk sausage in the hope that some of the future inmates will be neither royalty nor the offspring of millionaires, ahem.

I gleefully begin the session with a power point presentation of Scandoweigan celebrities. Within minutes a furious row breaks out as to whether Henrik Larsson really has joined Man U. Attempting to return to scholarly activities, I try a little Scandoweigan on them. It’s not long before I come across a language barrier that I hadn’t quite bargained for. The wee dears are calling things for me to translate, trouble is, I don’t get a word of it. “‘Jit’ you say?” comes my shrill voice, “JIT” the small boy repeats. I feel my neck redden and turn to the sniggering teacher for interpreting, “Jet! He’s saying ‘jet’” she sighs. Momentarily I’m still confused, “Oh you want to say ‘AIROPLANE,’ that’s easy ‘flyggplan,’ you know, like, FLY-PLANE” The class roar with laughter and my cheeks burn as I catch sight of my arms in my peripheral vision. They are flapping.

We try to continue, and when think I can’t be more humiliated, the teacher resorts to speaking French to me in the hope that we may develop a little more mutual comprehension. I realise that for four years I’ve been living in the Scottish equivalent of the green zone, beavering away at obscure Nordic tongues, and after all this time I can barely conduct a conversation with the locals, with whom I allegedly share a mother tongue. Shameful.

All’s well that ends well however, and a round of elderflower cordial appears to be popular, as does Scandoweigan once the lads and lassies discover that the word for ‘sport’ is ‘sport’, ‘rugby,’ is ‘rugby,’ ‘football,’ is ‘fotboll,’ and ‘cricket’ is ‘cricket.’

“This university lark’s a right skive!”