Bilingual homophonic chaos
Tonight Magda, Adam, and I will drive to Most na Soči and there board the Avtovlak to travel to Lake Bohinj for a little post-vacation vacationette. We planned this ahead of time, anticipating that after the long U.S. vacation, and especially the travel back, we might need a little quiet time to recover.
The Avtovlak is a great thing. It simply means “car-train” — you drive your car right onto open flatbed carriages. It also has regular carriages for people who don’t need to transport their cars, and it runs from the Soča Valley under the mountains to Bohinjska Bistrica, the jumping-off point for accessing our favorite spot in Slovenia’s Alps. It allows you to travel, still in your car, in 15 minutes what would take a good hour or more of relatively white-knuckle driving in second gear. I think it pays for itself in gas saved, let alone the time and stress of driving.
I have told the following story several times before, and no one seems to believe that I did not make it up in a fit of superioristic linguistic play. But I swear it happened. The second time I rode the Avtovlak I stepped into the station at Bohinjska Bistrica and observed the following scene:
A backpacker couple, 20-something and clearly American, consult train timetables and a map. They appear troubled and confused. It is not impossible that the source of the confusion is the Slovene language used on both information sources.
American backpacker male finally, reluctantly, approaches ticket window. An ancient, wizzened ticket-agent presides behind cloudy glass. The backpacker male painfully conducts the following exchange:
ABM: Umm, train? For, umm, Most na Soka?
AWT: Most na Soči?
ABM: Umm, da? At, umm, two forty-five?
AWT: Ah, a-HA! Avtovlak!
At this point the ABM, more dejected than ever, turns to his girlfriend and says, “well, he says we’re out of luck.”
Slovene: A Comprehensive Grammar notes:
“Special attention must be paid to the pronunciation of the voiced labio-dental consonant v. The voiced labio-dental consonant v is pronounced as v only before vowels or before a vocalic r… In other positions v is realised as:
(a) diphthongal u
(b) a voiced bilabial approximant w or a voiceless bilabial approximant ʍ…
(c) the vowel u
[This business of dealing with v continues for another full page]“
It’s not as bad as it sounds, but it helps to explain the real-life misunderstanding above.
Previously there was a discussion of v as it relates to ants.
On a related note, try to imagine (CAN you imagine??) the horror an equally Slovene-less American lass felt when she emerged from the WC at Most na Soci and discovered that her companion, guide, and communicator–along with his automobile and her luggage therein–seemed to have disappeared while she was washing her hands. She, too, would have been seriously autovlak (her Italian being nearly as nonexistent as her Slovene) had it not turned out that the train had simply gone a slight way down the track to turn around before its trip through the mountains.
The American’s pleasure at seeing her companion and his red VW once again chug into view was great, and was only slightly tainted later by the fact that said companion was unable to produce a single Finn anywhere at or near Bohinj.
Comment by Emily — Saturday 3 September 05 @ 03.01 MDT+2.00
Umm, da. I can imagine it. In fact, I seem to remember tears of relief. Your passport, cash, and precious camera were all in the car, too, if memory serves.
Comment by sgazzetti — Friday 9 September 05 @ 22.18 MDT+2.00