Tuesday, February 19, 2008

pidgin translation by Ruby at beach

We were on the Leeward side of the island almost to the northwest tip, playing in a tidepool, trying to catch fish in a little handheld net. A little boy ran up to us and said, "I know where you can get planny fish." And my husband Sean and I, who pride ourselves on knowing a good amount of pidgin (Sean's written pidgin-speaking characters in his plays and we have the pidgin dictionary!), looked at him blankly, asking, "What kind of fish?" "Planny fish!" "What kind of fish is that?," we kept asking. Finally, our six-year-old daughter Ruby translated for us. "He means he knows where there are a lot of fish." Thanks, Ruby.

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