Trade Language

1st time- English Club led by an island woman!

We are firm believers in knowing people’s heart language. Someone’s heart language is the language that they think in, dream in, pray in and that pours out of them when they are upset. If you want to touch people with new ideas, then they need to understand it at their heart language level. Usually this is their first language, the one that they grew up speaking, their mother tongue.

Many people have seen how people open up when we have been able to say something in their own language because it shows an investment in them, in their culture and it touches their heart. But it isn’t possible to know everyone’s languages.  In lots of places in the world there are too many mother tongues and we rely on trade languages to communicate. A trade language is a common tongue that will connect various people groups together.

People who have a trade language as their mother tongue aren’t usually as captivated by people speaking their language. We grew up speaking English, but when someone comes to us speaking English we aren’t touched by the idea that they are speaking our mother tongue. No, we assume they are speaking it because it is a useful trade language. As our island students always parrot, “English is an international language!”

So on the islands, we teach a trade language (English) and we learn islanders’ mother tongue. But there is a third language of the islands that we often skip over in our day-to-day lives. The primary trade language of the islands is not English, it is French. Islanders love English, but their government and schools are run using French. We studied French for a year in France and have found it a very useful tool, but we don’t use it regularly. We use French words all the time (since educated islanders mix the local language with French vocabulary constantly), but we rarely use “pure” French (just as we rarely hear pure French on the islands).

Often times we get a little intimidated when we have to speak pure French. We are confident throwing French into our local island language because we are usually speaking with islanders who do the same thing. French isn’t the mother tongue for islanders so they don’t care about mispronunciations or grammar mistakes. They make them too! Even if an islander insists on speaking French, we usually just respond in the local language and we end up having a nice conversation, mixing the languages with abandon and with no one batting an eye.

Christmas fun with our teammate

But there are times that we have to use pure French. Every once in awhile a foreign French speaker will come along. Suddenly the educated islanders will switch to “pure” French and uneducated islanders will fall silent or only speak in broken phrases. We wish we could make the clean switch to good French like some islanders. Unfortunately, our “pure” French switch is a little rusty and try as we might the local island words keep slipping in. We understand the pure French but have a harder time producing it, still in those limited situations where we encounter a French speaker we persevere and communicate. Still in general, we try to promote communication and writing in the local language and play down French.

But last week, I was surprised to find myself having whole conversations in French without the usual intimidation. I was telling stories, giving directions and leading a discussion! Now I should confess, it wasn’t great French. But my audience was very unique and very forgiving. They were all non-French kids!

I was on our porch on the islands with my three native-English speaking kids, two native-German speaking kids and one native-Portuguese speaking kid. What did we all have in common? French! All the kids are going to French-speaking schools and were at least a little comfortable in French. I chose a familiar story and asked simple questions. The older ones responded confidently but it was encouraging to see kids that I haven’t been able to communicate with in the past, watching me, understanding, connecting with the story and even hesitantly offering up answers to my questions. It brought a smile to my face, these three groups of kids could all connect over one story and interact together because of French!

Multilingual kids at play

I’ve seen the imbalance of power of trade languages when the native trade language speakers are talking to language learners. Whenever one person is just learning and the other is a native speaker, there is that imbalance. I’ve feel it as people struggle to talk to me in English or as I get embarrassed by my French mistakes with a native speaker. 

So as I played and chatted with this mixed group of kids, there was something beautiful about having a trade language.  It meant that there was no imbalance.  It was connecting us as language learners who otherwise would never be connected. And even as I would love to learn both German and Portuguese, I was thankful for the trade language that allowed us to connect and communicate.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful that we can study the good news with children in one language and the blessing it represents of God sending families from 3 different continents to these islands.  We are so thankful for each of these families.  May God bless them and strengthen them.  We are thankful that our traveling friends have all arrived safely at their destinations.  Our other friends have just signed a contract on their new rental house!  May they move easily and may the new house be a blessing to many.  We were able to spend a fun evening reading lessons and singing carols with our teammate before she left for vacation.  We are so thankful for our teammates and look forward to having 3 of them return in the new year! One of our sisters owns a car that was involved in an accident that totaled the car, she calls on us to thank God that the driver wasn’t hurt and for peace for those involved.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
May we keep up and use our French!  It is difficult to do so without practice, but it is a wonderful tool to have in our toolbox.  Every year our NGO produces calendars as a gift to give to our island friends.  The print shop has had some problems with their printers.  Pray that these problems would be fixed and the calendars could be printed soon.  Every year we have a Christmas Party with our English Club.  That will be this coming Wednesday.  Pray that we can make it an instructive and joyful event.  We have made the acquaintance of a very kind older couple.  The wife has been suffering from a number of medical issues and we have had multiple opportunities to pray for her.  Pray that these opportunities would lead to lasting friendship and new life.  Finally, pray for the unity of the body here in the islands.  Pray for good team dynamics on teams, respect and harmony among collaborating groups and servant leadership, good planning, and cooperation among islanders.