English and Spanish

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7191966.post-1103552032629663502004-12-20T08:58:00.000-05:002004-12-20T09:13:52.630-05:00English and SpanishMy friend H. says I'm a good friend (knowing him, this means I'm a *very* good friend) and I feel that way about him too, we go back almost fifteen years. We met when he was a teenage computer whiz working with my stepfather developing custom made real estate and financial programs for local companies and I was just a kid of about 9. We always understood each other like only great friends can. For the last 2 years our communication has been a little sporadic though, with me going through "something very important for me" as I told him one night. It was the difficult first era of my transition of which he of course has no idea. He understood, made no further questions: "write again when it's ok for you". In the end it was him who emailed me wanting to know where the heck I was. He asked if things were better (he hadn't forgotten) but nothing else. No prying, respectful. Very gentlemanly. We just went on talking like nothing had happened. In spanish mostly of course. Spanish is the basic language we chat in and it's definitely not a T-friendly venue of expression. In spanish all things are gendered: the speakers are male, the rug is female, the glasses are male, the stars are female... What's worse, adjectives are also gendered. It's impossible to refer to oneself in a non-gendered way like english allows so whenever you need to talk about yourself, you have to gender adjectives male or female in accordance with your own gender. In spanish, I would say, gendering myself female: Siempre me senti sola y abandonada (I always felt lonely and abandoned) [excuse the melodrama, it's for didactic purposes :)] But since I can't do that, instead of changing the last letter of the adjectives, I go: Siempre estuve en soledad y sentia como que me habian abandonado (I was always in loneliness and feeling as if I had been abandoned) In the perfect mode adjectives always default to a male ending which is really (and feels like) a neutral. Well I haven't self-gendered male in a long time in Spanish, retreating into a tokyo mixture of english and spanish when needed or making those linguistic roundabouts. Chatting with people back in the old country (or spanish speakers here who don't "know") is a hassle... good thing there aren't that many. I always wonder, has anyone noticed my verbal gymnastics? So far, no one has said anything directly, but strangely it's created an aura of non-gender about me (obvious for those who meet me in R/L due to my appearance). People use the roundabout ways more when referring to me, or more interestingly, feel obviously a little awkward when they *have* to gender me male. Not that they don't of course, but there's a little unease in the air between us. My friend H. He says now he might come by San Francisco to attend an Open Source conference and will take a plane to Georgia to pay me a visit and "have a beer together". After all, we haven't seen each other in more than 3 years. Gulp. ViviV.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06812296579111880006noreply@blogger.com