"KIA ORA KATOA!"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 6

"KIA ORA KATOA!"

UNKNOWN IN CAIRO. BUT THEY SPEAK ALL TONGUES. (By 4684, SIGXALMA3? R. T. MILLER, First Echelon.) With a steadily growing inferiority complex, I have juet been gazing at the back of a. tattered envelope which U part of the conglomeration of old letters, army forms, paybook, string, snapshots! and Woodbine cigarettes that gives my left-hand breut pocket something to do. Written on the back of it is the expression "Good health" in no fewer than twelve different languages, from Arabic to Turkish, via Berlin. The liet was compiled for me by an Armenian acquaintance who speaks aeven of the twelve tongues fluently, and has a smattering of another four. The twelfth and last U Maori, and that's where my inferiority complex comes in, for the words "Kia ora katoa," right at the foot of the list, are in my own handwriting—the sole language in which he needed my help! Eight Tongues no Trouble. ]

And *o, as I look again on thie .nteruational guide to eociab],! drinking, I am bound to reflect that the road to adventure* in language* i« certainly wide open in thie land of Egypt. I get a Cairo shopwalker linguistically interested by using ray French on him, and the next thing I know is that he would have no difficulty in ordering a ten-course dinner or a set of drawing room furniture in Madrid, Rome, Istan-i bul, Paris, Athens or Ponsooby! Six, seven and eight languages are no trouble at all to the least assuming of people here. It's not the "Where-is-the-pen-of-my-uncle!" childishness of your old French text took, either, but the colloquial, everyday speech that can get you out of, let alone into, trouble in almost every city in the world. Stepping -Stones to Success.

Yet these masters of the stun* of which words are made are not cosmopolitans in the true sense. Born in Egypt—«dmHt*dly often of European descent—most of them have never been out of the country. Whence this knowledge of languages, then? Have they studied all these tongues? "So," they'll tell you, "we've simply picked it up." They have had to. In Cairo's world of commerce, languages are stepping atones to success. The simplest business dealing may draw together such a mixture of -nationalities as Xew Zealand knows only at a wool sale. The man whose livelihood depends on its outcome won't get far if he does not know what the highest bidder is talking about. A typistc of any worth knows Arabic,' French and English like the back of her hand. The -youngest girl behind a department store eoiui :r can speak at least the first two of these tongues. A Dabbler in Arabic To my everlasting satisfaction I find I have not forgotten all the French I learned at school. I find, too, that I owe a debt to the master who put my pronunciation on the right road. With grounding, ray French is going ahead by leaps and bounds. I can have fun with it. A "How do you do?" in English fetches only the brief formal jeply that courtesy demands, but a 'Comment allez-vous ?" from under my pyramid felt opens the way to a whole conversation.

In the poetic, musical Arabic tongue I have but half-heartedly dabbled. I will never take to it oerioiuW. I have learnt to count from one to t«n, and to aay a y* e '" "»°»" "So away," ~I •m well," and "how much?" Those, you may say, are the bare essentials.

Aβ a matter of fact, however, I'm afraid I have learnt too much Arabic. Why? Well, about the only use to which I put it ie in street bargaining. Suppose I am walking down a Cairo street and some dusky son of Egypt dangles a chain necklace in front of my eyes He knows enough English to be able to entice me with "Look, Koo Zcalan'! \ou want—it necklace? Ver , nice ver , cheap!"

Xo matter how much I want to buv it, I must create the impreeskm that 'i am not greatly interested. If I fall over myself trying to get hold of it, I will forever be a "sucker" in his eyes and never buy the thing except at his price. And so I ask casually, in his own tongue: "How much ?" I roll it out ae ir Arabic ie an open hook to me. The conversation goes on like this, with the j vendor eneaking my tongue and I hi*: He: Forty piastres. I: La. la! (Nb. no!) He: Thirty piastre*. I (walking away): La, la! He: How much vou give-it then* I: Tallata (three"). He: All right, all right. Give it three. Trap for Young Player;;. See how it goes? I have to give him the idea thit I wasn't born vesterdav. that. I know all the little trick* of his trade. It invariably works. But, ae I wa« saying, it seems as if T know too much Arabic, because when I f<? ~ l °? Unt ° n,v fron, one to three Ullata w a . tho highest l,id I could ,5' ■ * nd ,f '* w *" unfair it iust couldn't be helped. Xow that I can count to -ten, however. I'm too much tempted to try to price the thing in mv SToo^h ndendupfc - vsrt^»' I confe, that If y<,,, h,, e el . Arabic ,n print you will know th» re.l ~", ,l -;l »»•' <* both,**! ~"„" Z ass «TX" y r sitCxa "Homorous" Means "Women"! it mitot be the most frightening of all. i» i f °*? d u" waiter hope?W«!? tangled in its intrwate web. Producing the jacket of an English novel, he begged me to nf n , * '"terpretation of some of the more difficult word*. He began with the publisher'* name—!, Hutchinson—which he carefullv trans! Jated as "the son of Hutchin." 'Beneath it was a criticism of the author's work • reading something like thU: -His char- ; ! acters are alive, human and humorous."' i W ° rd ;' charact "/' my Egyptian , friend earnestly explained, nieaiit -per- i *onal nature," "alive" meant "not dead " Tiuman meant "men" and "humoroue" meant '"women. , ' I hadn't the heart to tell him! , !