An International Language

Never trust a German and a Pole. Well, you can trust them, just be wary.

For some reason, people find me easily approachable. The reasons for approaching me vary. Sometimes people just want to know where I'm from. Other times they are trying to get some money from me. And sometimes I have absolutely no idea what they want. This final instance was often the case when I was in Poland. Not speaking a word of the language, people would come up to me and receive nothing more than a few mumbled syllables non-distinguishable in any dialect, a shoulder shrug, and what I imagine to be a grotesquely contorted face of confusion. These people may have wanted nothing more than to comment me on my pants or to inquire about who does my hair.

So being in Poland with Polish and German friends, I confront them with my problem stressing my frustration that I wasn’t even able to, in the simplest terms indicate to these people that I don’t speak any Polish and their efforts were wasted on me. Here’s what I remember of the dialogue:

Me: So, how do I say, “I don’t speak Polish” in Polish?
Christoph (the German): Just say “Yem Guvna”.
Jerzy, laughing: No, don’t say that.
Me: “Yem Guvna”? What does it mean?
Jerzy: It means...uh...something like…
Christoph: Just say it. Trust me…they will get the point.
Me: But what does it mean.
Jerzy: It means, “I eat shit”.

After picking myself up off the street from laughing so damn hard, I committed this phrase to memory, and it remains the only Polish phrase I know. Jerzy, being the great friend that is decided that occasions might arise where it may be beneficial to know more variations of the phrase, so he taught me the plural form “I eat shits”, the future tense “I will be eating the shit” and the present continuous “I am eating the shit”.

The justification for teaching me this is quite logical, and there in lies the crass brilliance of Christoph. For example, if you were trying to get someone’s attention, tossing out a simple “Hey, can you help me?” and this person replies with “I eat shit”, you would undoubtedly get the point that this person either doesn’t speak your language, or this is just quite simply someone you do not want to talk to.

I never got the chance to use my new phrase on any poor unsuspecting pedestrian or panhandler. Maybe someday I’ll be able to go back to Poland, armed with the perfect phrase for any tourist to know.