Language

I learnt Japanese at high school which has so far proved to be completely fucking useless. Japanese chicks are sometimes impressed that I can regurgitate a few words – sadly none of them meaning ‘let’s make more Asians’ (because if there’s one race at risk of dying out…) - but for the large part I have trouble ordering at Sushi Train. In hindsight it was a poor investment of my time.

People keep asking me if I’ve learnt any of the language up here. I have, I have. I’ve learnt ‘Ha’lo’ which means - fucking wait for it - ‘Hello’. I’ve also learnt the everuseful ‘Bho bho’ – or ‘Bye Bye’. Brilliant. So my command of ‘language’ – as all languages up here are referred – is moronic and insulting to multiculturalism. I’m like an American in Paris. My Aboriginal vocabulary is only useful if I’m cataloguing a single song on The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour album.

But it’s hard. The last time I researched there were 15 languages (including English) that are spoken here – though that number varies from source to source. Discrepancy is not uncommon. I’ve been putting together a film about the Cyclone Monica Recovery Festival. Local law pegs her at a category 5. The Bureau of Meteorology reckons it never got above a category 3 – but they’re a bunch of fucking clowns, everyone knows that. So 15 languages, give or take… and let’s call it category 6 – whatever the fuck that is.

“In per capita terms, Maningrida is perhaps the most multilingual community in the world” – true or not, it’s written on every piece of information about Maningrida you’ll ever pick up. Even this one. Apparently everyone has a solid hold on 3 or 4 languages. Smug pricks. Where do they think they are? Belgium?

I always end up talking to little kids because they’re up on my level. Problem being, there’s only so many times you can ask a 3 year old ‘what did you say?’ before you start giving them long-lasting psychological problems – you know, the good kind. ‘What?... What did you say?... No, that’s lost on me… Sorry, I can’t understand a word you’re saying… you want to learn how to speak properly, that’s your problem… take it somewhere else you mumbling fuck, you’re getting nothing from me.’ Still, she seemed to take it pretty well.

There is one word that seems to bridge the gap between all 15 languages. That word is, unsurprisingly, ‘fuck’ – you know, it’s the one I’da picked. I spend a lot of time listening to conversations in languages I don’t understand (so it’s not really eavesdropping). It’s amazing. Not like Spanish or Cherokee or Taxi Driver where I can pick up words and get the idea of what’s going on. Completely alien. The sounds, the intonation, the sentence arcs. And then a great big ‘fuck’ smack bang in the middle. Makes me smile every time.

I like being the outsider to everything. It’s grounding. Humbling. But just to get my own back I’ve started speaking Japanese to everyone. I can’t actually speak Japanese but what so they know? Everybody seems to smile in the right places – every time I slap in an unnecessary ‘fuck’. It seems Tourette’s is universal.