Precerpt from In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life - Austria: German
German
Although I could speak German, Johanna and I always spoke
Russian. Living in the University of Moscow dorms, we both naturally
communicated in Russian all day long. So, when we had some together time,
staying in Russian seemed natural. Besides, my Russian was better than my
German, at that time at least, and Joanna did not speak English. Russian was
the most obvious and best lingua franca.
I did know how to speak German, however, I had started my
study of German with two years of high school study, followed by upper level
university courses. As a linguistics major, German was one of the languages I
ended up studying to a high level. Then, in graduate school, I majored in comparative
literature, with an emphasis on German and Russian literature. I took
comprehensive exams in comparative literature and language exams in Russian and
German. I lived in Deutsches Haus (German House) in the university dorms, where
my roommate, Brigitte, was from Koeln (Cologne), Germany. She, just by the way,
introduced me to Carl, the person who became my husband, a third-generation
German. His grandfather (last name Hayden) loved talking to me in German when
we spent our honeymoon summer with Carl’s grandparents in Florida. So, although
I had never spent a day in Germany, I had developed a good deal of proficiency
in the language.
When I arrived in Austria, however, I found myself
tongue-tied. German was old, rusty. It had been more than a decade since I had
actually used the language. And, then, there was the Austrian dialect, a
different flavor from the Hochdeutsch that I had learned, the Koeln dialect of Brigitte,
and the old language of Carl’s grandfather.
Nonetheless, I persevered—and won. One thing that helped was
the frowns Johanna and I endured, especially in cafes, when we spoke in
Russian. She explained to me that Austrians were poorly disposed to “enemy” Russia,
not unexpected in those Cold War days. So, we began speaking German.
Near the time I arrived, Johanna invited some of her friends,
who were afficionados and graduate students of literature (German literature,
in particular), to dinner. Over dinner, we discussed many things. Well, they
discussed. I mostly listened, and once in a while assented or indicated that I
understood. The words just did not come. This was in my early, brief, tongue-tied
period. At the end of dinner, everyone decided to see a popular play, Salome
by Eugen O’Neill.
We met again the following Friday to see the play, and I
understood it all just fine. Yes! German had come back into my life! Afterward
gathered again for dinner at a lovely German restaurant, and I was able to participate
in the lively discussion about the play. Yes! I was no longer tongue-tied! We got into
a heated discussion about expressionism, when I suggested that, rather
surprisingly, there were some comparisons with the much earlier literary movement
in German literature of der Sturm und Drang: rebellion against norms of the
time (der Sturm und Drang against the Enlightenment and Expressionismus against
realism), emotional intensity, focus on inner truth, and symbolic archetypes (heroic
rebels and tragic lovers vs. mythic figures and distorted archetypes). We had
been digging into that topic for 20-30 minutes, when one of them stopped
suddenly and commented, “Wait, a week ago, you could barely tell us your name,
and now you are deep into literary discussions with us. Wow! You learn languages
fast! What is your secret?” (Of course, the secret was re-learning, not
learning!)
I also got to build on my German learning while in Austria. Johanna had to work every day, and she would take off in the morning, leaving me with her husband Franz, who knew two languages: German and music. He taught music at the University of Innsbruch and performed concerts. His teaching schedule was modest, so we had a lot of time to talk. He loved to talk about politics (Austrian politics), music (of course), and health (he was a bit of a hypochondriac). My vocabulary expanded rapidly into new domains, and so did my knowledge about health. One of the “gifts” (perhaps I should not use that word since Gift in German means poison) was a roll of fizzy tablets that had a profound effect on bronchitis, from which I was suffering when I arrived but not for long, thanks to Franz. I took several rolls back to the States, but I could never find the equivalent at home in those pre-Amazon, the-whole-world-is-available-for-purchase days.
by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
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