Language

If you happen to be a fellow PCV who reads this blog (theres probably not more than one of you) the following will be old news and thus completely worthless. My advice, stop reading. There's no reason to waste your precious time reading crap you already know to be absurd. What's that? You're a PCV and thus you have untold hours of free time, thereby forcing you to debase yourself by reading the filth I write?

Anyway, for the other two or three people who casually glance at this in between visits to youporn and ESPN, the following is a bit on language. As PCVs in this country, we have a odd, yet interesting niche in society. On one hand, we are (somewhat) trained in one of the local languages and can, with great effort, communicate with the people in our community. On the other hand, we are a bunch of foreigners and in many ways get treated as such.

Stuff Moroccans call us:

1. Nesrani- Literally meaning "Christian," it is used to refer to all white peeps
2. Romi (taromit for girls)- My favorite of all things to be called because it literally means "Roman." This is more commonly used by Amazigh people (who have been here since forever ago) and truly shows just how up with the times mountainous Moroccans can be.
3. Jackie Chan, Bruce lee- Yelled only at some
4. There is one other Berber word, possibly phrase, which was tossed at me in a small, nearby village. While I didn't make any sense of it, a Berber trained PCV translated it as "the one who steals our olive oil." Ouch.

Also, being immature pricks (1) we also translate certain phrases from colloquial English into the Arabic dialect we supposedly speak.

Examples:

1. klba, 3afak- bitch, please
2. dak shi li galt- that's what she said
3. dir lxddama wld- do work son
4. sear l cunt- go to the corner

OK so that last one is pretty harmless in English. Doesn't make it any less awesome. Regardless, oftentimes the reverse of this effect is also true. I can't imagine any group other than Morocco PCVs saying stuff like "Take care of your head" or "God Bless your Parents" in an entirely serious context.

Then there's the most glaring language issue of all; our constant bumbling with Arabic and its pronunciation. Despite having no authority on the subject, I feel Arabic has to be one of the hardest friggin languages on this planet. Sure, the Arabic I try to speak is not nearly as complex as the standard, written version with its ridiculous number of conjugations, (2) but its still plenty confusing. To get an idea, observe the following three words written in out Latin characters.

qra- he read (past tense) or imperative command for read (present)

qr3- bald

qr3a- bottle

First off, the fact that the same exact word can be used in the third person past and in the second person present is just ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the fact that the English word "read" is spelled the same in past and present and yet pronounced differently. Anyway, if you are thinking to yourself "those three words are completely different. I mean, since that backwards three thing does not exist in our alphabet it has to represent some totally distinct sound."

Well, according to my textbook the letter "ع" can best be approximated by a non-native speaker by "pronouncing the 'a' in fat." So, in the word qr3a, we have a type of "a" sound, followed by a another slightly different "a" sound. Awesome. You would think that a person would understand slight mispronunciations from a foreigner considering the similarity between the two letters, but no. People honestly think I'm asking for bald coke (3). Lastly, in Arabic there are two different "s's," two different "h's," two different "t's" and two different "d's." Wonderful.

So now that I've bored you, my 4 (maybe 3 by now) readers, I'll leave you with some sweet phrases in English for which only asses like us PCVs have a use (4).

1) To small-boy someone (v)- asking a fellow PCV to go to the store and get something

ex. "Hey broldemort, if you're going out can I small-boy you for some chips?

2) Morocco goggles (n)- when marginally dirty stuff looks really clean because of the conditions to which one is accustomed. Obviously, it also applies to bitties.

ex. "Yo brosimite sam, does that town/chick look clean or is it just my Morocco goggles?

3) Peace Corps pretty, PCP (adj)- a) a person who is attractive enough to withstand the lack of hygiene imposed by service. b) a person who would not normally be attractive but due to scarcity of possible mates is considered "doable." (Yes, these are exact opposites.)

ex. "Ey brometheus, is that broad PCP?"

"Idk brolsen twin, it depends what you mean by that"

"look Wolfgang Amadeus Brozart, I just wanna know if I should make moves"

"oh fo sho, Bronan the Brahbarian"

"thanks for the input Brohamed VI"

(1) Well maybe I'm the only immature prick, but everyone else still says this stuff.

(2) There are not only different second person pronouns depending on gender, there are also different pronouns and corresponding conjugations depending on whether it's 1, 2 or 3+ people

(3) the phrase "bald coke" has to mean something in some version of slang

(4) There are more of these but a friend is putting them together for a submission to our newsletter so I won't use em all up here...not that the make any sense.