As always, fantastic article. Love the thoughts about particular cities and places being a language. It can be a lonely space to be when you have these very two disparate languages and no one else understands you or at least only half of you. I think that makes chance encounters with folks that do happen to know both of those places, who speak both languages, extra special. In my case, there are very, very, very few people in the world who have spent significant time in both Macau and Winnipeg. Besides my siblings, there is a family friend of ours, who is originally from Syria but fled with her family to Macau, lived there for 4-5 years, until they immigrated to Winnipeg. She is the only other person that I see on a regular basis, besides family. There is always some sort of amazing energy when hanging out with her and talking because of the ability to not have to restrain myself from spouting off all types of examples, comparison, memories when talking about either place.
I think you are right though about their being some uniqueness to speaking both dialects of "prairienese." I would imagine the experience of people moving away, particularly from places like Winnipeg or Edmonton, are generally to much larger cities, where there will be more potential opportunities to encounter folks from those cities and be able to converse in their particular hometown vernacular. Anyways, just a thought perhaps. Once again, always appreciate your thoughts on things like this Tyler.
As always, fantastic article. Love the thoughts about particular cities and places being a language. It can be a lonely space to be when you have these very two disparate languages and no one else understands you or at least only half of you. I think that makes chance encounters with folks that do happen to know both of those places, who speak both languages, extra special. In my case, there are very, very, very few people in the world who have spent significant time in both Macau and Winnipeg. Besides my siblings, there is a family friend of ours, who is originally from Syria but fled with her family to Macau, lived there for 4-5 years, until they immigrated to Winnipeg. She is the only other person that I see on a regular basis, besides family. There is always some sort of amazing energy when hanging out with her and talking because of the ability to not have to restrain myself from spouting off all types of examples, comparison, memories when talking about either place.
I think you are right though about their being some uniqueness to speaking both dialects of "prairienese." I would imagine the experience of people moving away, particularly from places like Winnipeg or Edmonton, are generally to much larger cities, where there will be more potential opportunities to encounter folks from those cities and be able to converse in their particular hometown vernacular. Anyways, just a thought perhaps. Once again, always appreciate your thoughts on things like this Tyler.
Did you really call the German language ‚sexy, beautiful, and fancy‘? That is a first for me and I am an almost fifty year old German. 🤣