Learning the Lingo

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work. ~Carl Sandburg

From the earliest of times, military units have put together “invasion dictionaries” for the purpose of establishing communications with those they hoped to dominate. Way back when Caesar was stomping everyone into the ground, the Roman armies had “linguists” who facilitated the subjugation of those trodden under by providing language translations. This has been common practice with all military units since.

When I went to Vietnam, there was no such publication available, (at least not for lower ranking men of the enlisted nature) no Google Translate, and yes, it was occasionally (often?) difficult to interact with the Vietnamese, when necessary.

Many of the Vietnamese spoke pidgin English, which made them more astute than most Americans, who spoke little or no Vietnamese.

But we learned the important stuff real fast:

Beucoup;  much   

No Bic;  don’t understand 

Dinky dao;  Crazy 

Beucoup dinky dao;  VERY crazy

Boom Boom;     😉

Numba one;  you are great!      

Numba ten;  you stink 

Caca dau;  I kill you     

Chelly boy;  new guy    

Cong Mou;  Mosquito                    

Didi Mau;  let’s get the hell outta here     

Trau Dien;   Crazy Buffalo 

Ao Dai;  traditional Vietnamese woman’s dress 

Cong Khi;  Monkey 

Dung Lai;  Halt    

Khong hut thuoc;   No smoking

La Vay;  Beer  

Moua;  Rain        

Nook;  Water  

Nuoc Mam;   Fermented fish     (beucoup fermented)

Mama San;  Vietnamese woman  

Papa San; Vietnamese man 

Baby San; Vietnamese child   

Same same;  Same ol …

Tee tee;  very little  

Tu Dai;  booby trap   

I made an effort to learn Vietnamese, beyond the slang. A family member sent me a Vietnamese language book and I spent a few weeks studying it before trying it out on the locals.

After I felt I had enough mastery, I approached a few of the Mama Sans on base and started jabbering in Vietnamese. (My dialect) Normally talkative, all those present stood mute, staring at me like I was from the planet Mars. Not to be discouraged, I tried it out on a few of the Papa Sans, who were working nearby. A few of them were courteous enough to stifle their laughter, most did not.

Back to the drawing board, I hit the book for a few more weeks and tried again; with the same results, after which I tossed the book into our nightly bon-fire and put aside my visions of becoming the next ambassador to Vietnam.

I also did my best to master Korean, as I spent most of my last month in Vietnam with Korean soldiers of the Tiger Division. As with the Vietnamese language, I mastered enough Korean to stay fed, hydrated and mostly out of trouble.

좋은 하루 보내세요  (Have a good day)  😉

                                    ***

 You are welcome to share this post as is, citing Joe as the creator. Copyright protected, all rights reserved © Joe Campolo Jr