Would you Like: Paper or Plastic?

When I thought of a bag - or sack - back home . . . the above question is what most quickly came to mind. The choice of sack.

However, recently I've come to learn that here I have a choice of sacks as well. A friend of mine was told by a mutual Fulani friend that there are language sacks:

Some people have separate sacks for every language in their head. So as they are speaking in either French, English, Fulfulde, Djarma - they pull words from that language sack. Other people just have one language sack in which everything is one big mix.

I think I try to keep my language sacks separate, but every so often - one spills into another, mid-conversation as it were. Those who knew me and spoke with me during my Québec sudies - and even now - know that my French sack spills often in my English conversations. And vice versa. Sometimes the spillage consists of French-ified english words or Anglicized french words (see - just did it!). We call this Franglais or Frenglish . . . Franglais actually popped up on Facebook as a language choice!! Phew, so I must not be the only one!

Other times, the spill of one sack into another consists of entire sentences in one language with an occasional word in the other.

I remember during my first year here - I went out to do some village surveys. One day I was teamed up with a local Fulani villager (who speaks Fulfulde and French) and we tag-teamed the surveys. At one point, I turned to him and spoke a couple of sentences. Apparently, I spoke one complete sentence in english and one complete sentence in French. He kindly asked me to repeat myself. As the last words my brain heard were French - I didn't notice the English. And oddly enough, I repeated myself in exactly the same manner: one sentence in English and one sentence in French. He looked at me again and then told me in Fulfulde (for the benefit of everyone else sitting there): "Hadija - you are speaking to me in English!"

Occasionaly, my national languages get mixed up - I can start greeting someone in Djarma or Tamasheq and respond in the other or Fulfulde! In language class, I will occasionally - and purposefully - throw in the odd English or French word into a sentence which I have not yet learned in Fulfulde; knowing that my tutor will then teach me the word necessary. At times I re-read a sentence I have written in English and notice that it is a Fulfulde grammatical structure. (sigh) Yet for the most part (I think) my Fulfulde has it's own separate sack.

Today, however, as I was speaking to a Fulani friend on the phone, my brain processed something new. I've typed my sentence below - and I know what you are thinking: "Kristi, I don't speak Fulfulde!" But I promise you - if you perservere, even you will find the error!!

To my Fulani friend I said:

Janngo subaka, miɗo woodi hawrinde; amma, mi noddete after hawrinde nde.

Find it?

My friend hesitated and asked me to repeat myself. And thankfully, this time, because my brain had somehow caught itself, I was able to repeat my sentence correctly.

Abdoulaye is way too kind!