Saturday, April 01, 2006
VI. Danes in Black [Originally posted Monday 1 May 2000]
Something I probably should have mentioned in one of my earlier e-mails is the Danish penchant for Black Leather. These sorte lædere jakke are ubiquitous - almost like a uniform of some sort - and I think they may also involve some sort of coming-of-age ritual as well, since they are typically not part of the wardrobe of the very young or the very old. In any event, I often feel as though I really stand out as an American in my forest green Gore-Tex.
My mother and my aunt are both over here visiting me now, so my activities have taken a decidedly touristic twist. Seems like my mom has practically memorized the guidebook, while my aunt is an independent traveler of great experience, and thus a terrific source of practical travel tips. Saturday we all met in Skagen, at the very tip of Jutland, to see the place where the Baltic and the North Seas meet. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and it seemed like half of Denmark was up there with us. Enjoyed a picnic lunch of sandwiches I surreptitiously constructed out of my mother's hotel's buffet breakfast, bottled water we picked up on the train, and some fruit purchased at the Skagen Super Brugsen, the splurged for some soft ice cream cones (and a cold Carlsberg for me!) before leaving my aunt to repair her bicycle tires and taking the train back to Aalborg.
Sunday Mom and I went south to Århus, where we visited Den Gamle By ("the old town"), an outdoor museum similar to Old Stubridge Village in Massachusetts, where dozens of authentic, old-time half-timbered buildings have been reconstructed in a park along several cobblestoned streets and a small, artificial canal. The buildings have also been furnished with antiques and other period equipment, so that you can wander in and out of the buildings and get some sense of how people actually lived and made their living in Denmark in times past. But the coolest exhibit (at least in my mind) was the cobblestone gutter which ran down the center of the street from the town well in the center of the main Torvet down to the canal - very subtle, yet a very vivid reminder of what it might have been like to live in a time before PVC pipe.
Had a terrific Smørrebord lunch, strolled by the Domkirke (the largest Cathedral in Denmark - unfortunately closed on Sundays!), then enjoyed a cold 44 kr half-liter Øl (expensive even by Danish standards) at a canal-side cafe along Arhus's lovely walking street before catching the train back to Aalborg. My mom is now staying at a delightful little B & B just across the park from the train station, and a 10 minute walk from my place, very convenient to everything and complete with its own balcony - although the bathroom is across the hall. She seems to be enjoying her time here very much.
Having my mom in tow (who speaks no Danish to speak of whatsoever) has really reinforced how much of this language I understand, as well as how much of it I don't! Fortunately, there is usually someone around to bail me out when I run into trouble, like I did trying to order my mom a diet coke at one of the sidewalk Pølse (“sausage”) carts. Danish is not a very complicated language in many respects: a simple grammar, and not a lot of lexicon - the words which don't resemble English are usually fairly recognizable from German, except for all those "little words" which simply need to be picked up and memorized. The problem is with the phonology, and the fact that most Danes the way that I speak English: about 140 kph while mumbling and swallowing every other word! I can usually read it with a fair amount of facility (and the help of my pocket dictionary), although it is a tediously slow process compared to the speed that I read in English. Speaking is also not a huge problem, since I tend to keep it simple, try to figure out what I want to say beforehand, and can usually make my meaning clear somehow. But when people stop ME on the street to ask directions, forget it!
Of course, I have a theory that most Danes don't really understand what they are saying to one another either - but like an old married couple who are both losing their hearing, they are simply able to figure it out from context and long familiarity. (My cultural informants tell me that I'm way off base on this, BTW. But what do *they* know about baseball?). It has also gotten me thinking though about the relationship between language and cultural identity, and the question of what distinguishes a "language" from a "dialect." I'm sure the linguists have a clear and precise definition for these categories, but to my ear, for example, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian all seem very similar (except for the spelling, which I suspect is deliberate); and certainly no more different from one another than, say, British, American, and Australian "English" (to say nothing of the dialects spoken in Maine and Texas). But Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all separate "languages" none the less. German, on the other hand, is filled with mutually-unintelligible local "dialects," yet German "culture" is tied together by the twentieth-century descendant of Martin Luther's High German and the substantial national literature published in it.
The Danish language is similarly important to Danish national/cultural identity, and I strongly suspect that one of the reasons they switch so quickly to English (as well as talking way too fast and mumbling) is to keep the "club" closed to outsiders. (My informants tell me I'm way off base on this as well). Still, there is a certain satisfaction in responding to Danish English in an "English" which is also full of slang, spoken way too fast, and mumbled, and seeing the confused look on *their* faces for a change. Not that I do this deliberately. Actually, living in Denmark has made me very sensitive to some of the basic principles of interpersonal communication I learned as both a writer and a clergyman: speak slowly and distinctly, try to use the active voice, stick to common words, and paraphrase what you are hearing to make certain you have understood correctly.
Usually that's good enough to get by; and if it's not, one can always rely upon the kindness of strangers. At least the dogs all seem to understand English perfectly well! Till next time!.......twj
Something I probably should have mentioned in one of my earlier e-mails is the Danish penchant for Black Leather. These sorte lædere jakke are ubiquitous - almost like a uniform of some sort - and I think they may also involve some sort of coming-of-age ritual as well, since they are typically not part of the wardrobe of the very young or the very old. In any event, I often feel as though I really stand out as an American in my forest green Gore-Tex.
My mother and my aunt are both over here visiting me now, so my activities have taken a decidedly touristic twist. Seems like my mom has practically memorized the guidebook, while my aunt is an independent traveler of great experience, and thus a terrific source of practical travel tips. Saturday we all met in Skagen, at the very tip of Jutland, to see the place where the Baltic and the North Seas meet. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and it seemed like half of Denmark was up there with us. Enjoyed a picnic lunch of sandwiches I surreptitiously constructed out of my mother's hotel's buffet breakfast, bottled water we picked up on the train, and some fruit purchased at the Skagen Super Brugsen, the splurged for some soft ice cream cones (and a cold Carlsberg for me!) before leaving my aunt to repair her bicycle tires and taking the train back to Aalborg.
Sunday Mom and I went south to Århus, where we visited Den Gamle By ("the old town"), an outdoor museum similar to Old Stubridge Village in Massachusetts, where dozens of authentic, old-time half-timbered buildings have been reconstructed in a park along several cobblestoned streets and a small, artificial canal. The buildings have also been furnished with antiques and other period equipment, so that you can wander in and out of the buildings and get some sense of how people actually lived and made their living in Denmark in times past. But the coolest exhibit (at least in my mind) was the cobblestone gutter which ran down the center of the street from the town well in the center of the main Torvet down to the canal - very subtle, yet a very vivid reminder of what it might have been like to live in a time before PVC pipe.
Had a terrific Smørrebord lunch, strolled by the Domkirke (the largest Cathedral in Denmark - unfortunately closed on Sundays!), then enjoyed a cold 44 kr half-liter Øl (expensive even by Danish standards) at a canal-side cafe along Arhus's lovely walking street before catching the train back to Aalborg. My mom is now staying at a delightful little B & B just across the park from the train station, and a 10 minute walk from my place, very convenient to everything and complete with its own balcony - although the bathroom is across the hall. She seems to be enjoying her time here very much.
Having my mom in tow (who speaks no Danish to speak of whatsoever) has really reinforced how much of this language I understand, as well as how much of it I don't! Fortunately, there is usually someone around to bail me out when I run into trouble, like I did trying to order my mom a diet coke at one of the sidewalk Pølse (“sausage”) carts. Danish is not a very complicated language in many respects: a simple grammar, and not a lot of lexicon - the words which don't resemble English are usually fairly recognizable from German, except for all those "little words" which simply need to be picked up and memorized. The problem is with the phonology, and the fact that most Danes the way that I speak English: about 140 kph while mumbling and swallowing every other word! I can usually read it with a fair amount of facility (and the help of my pocket dictionary), although it is a tediously slow process compared to the speed that I read in English. Speaking is also not a huge problem, since I tend to keep it simple, try to figure out what I want to say beforehand, and can usually make my meaning clear somehow. But when people stop ME on the street to ask directions, forget it!
Of course, I have a theory that most Danes don't really understand what they are saying to one another either - but like an old married couple who are both losing their hearing, they are simply able to figure it out from context and long familiarity. (My cultural informants tell me that I'm way off base on this, BTW. But what do *they* know about baseball?). It has also gotten me thinking though about the relationship between language and cultural identity, and the question of what distinguishes a "language" from a "dialect." I'm sure the linguists have a clear and precise definition for these categories, but to my ear, for example, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian all seem very similar (except for the spelling, which I suspect is deliberate); and certainly no more different from one another than, say, British, American, and Australian "English" (to say nothing of the dialects spoken in Maine and Texas). But Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all separate "languages" none the less. German, on the other hand, is filled with mutually-unintelligible local "dialects," yet German "culture" is tied together by the twentieth-century descendant of Martin Luther's High German and the substantial national literature published in it.
The Danish language is similarly important to Danish national/cultural identity, and I strongly suspect that one of the reasons they switch so quickly to English (as well as talking way too fast and mumbling) is to keep the "club" closed to outsiders. (My informants tell me I'm way off base on this as well). Still, there is a certain satisfaction in responding to Danish English in an "English" which is also full of slang, spoken way too fast, and mumbled, and seeing the confused look on *their* faces for a change. Not that I do this deliberately. Actually, living in Denmark has made me very sensitive to some of the basic principles of interpersonal communication I learned as both a writer and a clergyman: speak slowly and distinctly, try to use the active voice, stick to common words, and paraphrase what you are hearing to make certain you have understood correctly.
Usually that's good enough to get by; and if it's not, one can always rely upon the kindness of strangers. At least the dogs all seem to understand English perfectly well! Till next time!.......twj
# posted by The Eclectic Cleric @ 5:11 PM 
