Cosmopolitan Nottingham

The old joke goes something like this: "If you call someone who speaks three languages, 'trilingual,' and you call someone who speaks two languages, 'bilingual,' what do you call someone who speaks only one language?

(Prepare rim-shot for punch line.) "Someone who speaks only one language is called, 'American.'" (Ba-dum!)

So, to our American ears, it's quite unusual to hear so many different languages spoken around the neighborhood. Just on a walk to the grocery store there are often more than we can identify. The British Empire encompassed many lands and peoples, a variety of whom have settled here in the East Midlands.

It may be Bombay "style," but they cook a little of everything!

As an example, all of the photos in this post were taken at one major intersection, just a short walk from our home. All are within 50 yards of one another. And this isn't just our neighborhood. One could go a half mile or so to the next large intersection and take a similar set. Certainly one could have a like set from the city centre.

First, the variety of accents varies so greatly by region that we still have trouble understanding all forms of English here (there are some great YouTube videos around, about Scots trying to use computer voice recognition programs, such as the iPhone's Siri)!

This grocery features "halal" meat for Muslims, as well as other ethnic foods.

Although about 85% of Britain's population of 60 million self-identify as "White British," even among this population are nearly 10% whose first language is some form of Gaelic (Scottish, Irish, Welsh, or Cornish versions). Many have the accents to prove it.

As I've mentioned previously in this space, many of our neighbors here are South Asians. So it's common to hear various forms of Hindi, Punjabi, Pashto, or Urdu (not that our American ears can tell which is which).

Just one of several mosques in the neighborhood.

On any given bus ride down to the city centre we pass through neighborhoods with large populations of West African and Jamaican immigrants. So hearing people speak in a Nigerian or Congolese language is not uncommon.

Men streaming out of the local mosque after Friday prayers may still be speaking Arabic.

Polish butcher shop.

There are also quite a few Eastern Europeans in our neighborhood. A first wave of Poles, Ukranians, Latvians, and others came immediately after World War II. Another wave of immigration from Bosnia, Slovakia, Russia and Poland has been more recent.

Not in our neighborhood, but in Nottingham generally, there is a fairly large Italian population, and many of the older generation, at least, are still most comfortable in that language.

In addition, the University of Nottingham has done a good job of recruiting international students from everywhere, but particularly large numbers from China. So hearing a group of students chatting in Mandarin is also not uncommon.

We typically hear any or all of these language groups just walking down the street or riding the local bus. It's not something we're used to in Iowa, but it has inspired our students. Some are auditing university language classes for no credit, just because their interest has been raised.

If this sort of thing keeps up, perhaps in a few generations the old joke about monolingual Americans won't get a laugh.