Bi-lingual? Tri-lingual? Quad-lingual? Keep trying...
My dad never had any time for religion. But he still didn't like being rude when various god-botherers stopped bothering their (g/G)od and came bothering him instead. Before WW2, he'd been in the Egyptian police, so he spoke Arabic like a native. He'd been in France and Germany and spoke both those languages pretty well too. He'd picked up bits and pieces in his travels, some Hindi in India and god-knows what in Burma, and amongst the Gurkhas (Nepalese/Gurkhali). Perhaps not good enough to make dinner-party conversation about politics, but enough to get by on a daily basis and command a troop of Gurkhas. He also 'spoke' some very basic sign language, and knew the British sign alphabet.

So one day there's a knock at the door, and when he answers it, there's two guys there, who immediately kick off in american accents, so I reckon they had to be Mormons. My dad stands there for a few seconds, then says in French: "I'm sorry, I don't speak any English." Well, Mormon no.1 looks at him, and starts struggling to reply in halting schoolboy French.

"Oh dear," says my dad in fluent German, "I'm sorry, I don't speak French either.". Mormon 2 starts in with some German (got to give 'em credit, the poor sods were trying real hard to save his irredeemable ass).

"No, sorry," says my dad in flawless Arabic, "German's no good either. Maybe you should try another house?" At which point the god-botherers spot me behind my dad in the hallway. "Excuse me, sonny, but do you speak English? We're trying to talk to your dad about Jesus.".

Dad turns, sees me, and starts signing to me. "No, no," he says, in what he later assured me was Hindi, "the boy's deaf and dumb - can't hear a word you're saying. - not right in the head, the poor lamb." Meanwhile, I've heard the J-word, so I've sussed what's going on and am keeping quiet.

At this point, the guys figure out they're not getting a straight answer, and it's time to cut their losses. "We'll be going now. Sorry to have bothered you." they say in that way people do when they're talking to the elderly and insane.

They'd turned away by this point, so I couldn't actually see their faces when my dad closed the door, saying "Not at all, old chap, good day to you!" in his best BBC english accent, but damn I'd have paid serious money to have done so.
(Leo Sasquatch hates being the grown-up, Sun 2 Dec 2007, 2:35, 1 reply)

Excellent
That is truly excellent! Give your da a kiss from me.





no tongue, mind.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Sun 2 Dec 2007, 20:05, closed)