Google Translate: noise
[from FB post: March 14, 2016]
Wow....you know I had a moment that I dreamed about in my mind. I was in a nice coffee shop in Salalah Gardens Mall and there was a group of Chinese guys there (in fact there were Chinese all over the mall???) talking very loudly. An Omani guy kept looking at them very annoyed. HAHAHAHA. So many times in KSA I heard people speaking Arabic loudly and said to myself, "you know the only language more displeasing to my ear is Chinese spoken loudly". So here I had some Chinese speakers pissing off an Arabic speaker. And I got to watch it...
We all have language prejudices and stereotypes. While some people might find some languages "melodic", others might find the same ones equal to screeching. This post should be taken with a grain of salt, after all - it is my blog, not a policy document.
Languages that just cut through me:
Cantonese - I was in a market in Hong Kong back in the late 80's with a local friend, Liza, who helped me bargain for a pair of jeans. What I saw and heard - Liza and the shop owner shrieking at each other most dreadfully. After the purchase I thanked her for her help, but apologized for making her upset with the vendor. She looked at me blankly - "what on earth are you talking about?"
Australian English (American English a close runner up) depending on how "unaware" people are of their volume. I remember being in a McDonald's in Bali and one Australian woman was so loud, the entire restaurant was looking at her as she placed her order. She was not upset, drunk, or in any way acting out of the norm - she was just speaking in her normal voice. Americans are a very close second in their oft unawareness of volume.
Arabic in Saudi Arabia - men are apparently taught they must speak loudly and boldly lest they be viewed as "wimps". It is common to see two men sitting across a table from each other literally screaming at each other in "normal conversation". I find this one especially ironic since Saudi recordings of Quran recitation are almost like Gregorian chants and could easily chill me right to sleep. Otherwise, I swear the Star Trek franchise based Klingon pronunciation on Saudi Arabic.
Indonesian Call to Prayer - apparently to make up for any mispronunciations of Arabic, Indonesians feel that SHRIEKING the call to prayer somehow obviates those errors. A close second is "Taruwih" (the reading of the entire Quran during Ramadan) which in Indonesia is often performed by young children who clearly need to hone those shrieking skills early. I can only wonder what would go through a Saudi's mind in Indonesia during Ramadan.
Of course, we all have had experiences of being in a situation where just a single person speaking in any language grates on our nerves, but the above for me represents a class of aural activities and "language sounds" that have disturbed me consistently. Little is more frustrating than being stuck in a situation where a person is speaking, it is annoying, and it cannot be escaped.
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