Bad Language

In the months before leaving for HK I was speaking more French than ever before; socially, professionally, but still poorly. Although I can make myself understand and understand a good 90% of everything thats going on around me my grammer is irregular, my vocab at times can be shonky and I know that getting rid of some of mistakes that have become hard coded into my brain will be tough. However on a recent trip back to the UK I realised that I also now speak English poorly and also spell horribly. My friends picked me up on it, pointing out my bad grammer, my splicing of French words that don't exist in English into sentances and even translating French phrases directly into English and hence coming out with 'as you wish' (pretencious) or 'that rolls' (just plain nonsense) countless times throughout the day. Not only has being away from a wholly English culture for years done nothing for my English language skills, but i've also cultivated a mongrel English/American accent, with the odd Ozzie/Froggy tinge dropping in from time to time for good measure. And just as all that poor grammer and those dodgy accents have been etched into my brain, the last couple of months of continuous French have had their effect, so that here in HK I automatically reply to waiters, shop assistants, people in the street in French - I just can't seem to kick the habit!

HK is an insanely culturally diverse city, possibly more so than NY or London given the range Western and Asian countries from which the expat community originates, combined with the enormous number of Chinese on the island. Regardless of this rich ethnic mix I know that its likely to prove linguistically bland with me continuing to have to 'dumb down' my vocab in order to be properly understood by the various nationalities around me. Therefore I threw Russel Hoban's 'Riddley Walker' into my suitcase on leaving Paris and have just started in on the first chapter.

First published in 1980 it apparently took Hoban more than 5 years to write, and at the end of which he was unable to either spell or talk properly. Based in post nuclear Britain our narrator, Riddley, uses what I would describe as a cross between a West Country Dialect and the terms used by teenagers in text messages; Riddleyspeak, using 'girt' for 'great' or 'cud' for 'could' to conjure up twisted phrases such as 'how cud any 1 not want to be like them what had boats in the air'.
In the latest edition of the book Will Self, who's 'Great Apes' opened my eyes to the way language could be warped to aid in the imagery of a story, points out that 'Riddleyspeak' forces us to actually read the text rather than simply recognise the words (word recognition being how most of us read after the age of 9 or 10). He goes on to warn us that in todays world, where nobody wants to slow down, few want profound and there is little time to sit back and consider, reading Riddley Walker is like walking through toffee and runs the risk of, like Hoban, coming away for the experience with damaged languageabilities. So what have I got to lose? I already speak 2 languages poorly, lets add Riddleyspeak to the list and make it solid 3.