Bilingual

What language do you dream in? It’s supposed to be the tell for your “first” language. Well, not for me. My relationship with language is complicated, and I dream in whatever language I last consumed before turning off my light in the evening — Russian or English.

My family moved to the States shortly before my thirteenth birthday, halting the development of my Russian at seventh grade. Unfortunately for me, it also means that I’ve missed 13 formative years of basic English. It’s impossible to know exactly what I missed, of course, but I’ll certainly remember the day, during that miserable fall of 8th grade, when an aunt kindly explained to me the difference between “oops” and “ouch.”

Worse yet, over the last couple of decades, a whole new vocabulary has sprouted from the technology boom, opening my language gap that much wider. There are now words I only know in English and words I no longer understand in Russian. Some of these new words had been originally plucked from Silicon Valley startups, passed through a Russification grinder, translated back to English, and conjugated six times over. The resulting syllables sound familiar enough, but their meaning is a complete mystery.

But I make do with what I have. When outside of a distinct, language-specific environment — speak English at work, speak Russian to grandma — I simply employ the words that come to me in the moment, and going in and out of Runglish is so natural, that I barely notice it. It’s the reactions to my language switch that give me true pause. One somewhat recent and notable incident happened at my daughter’s birthday party, when exasperated by the ungodly decibel levels, I lost my cool-mom cool and barked something at her. I don’t remember what I yelled, only the eight startled faces that turned toward me in unison. That was a low moment — though a quiet one, I must admit. I only hope she won’t remember that for the rest of her life, as I might.

There are, of course, times when I switch to the other language with purpose. It’s a convenient trick, you know, to conspiratorially whisper something to a friend, who won’t judge me too harshly — “check out that ugly dress” — or to my kids, who are accustomed to my paranoia — “don’t touch anything here.”

This sort of covert comment is so involuntary that I occasionally forget to turn it off. Once, I was visiting a friend who works for a large software company, and there in the hallways, I ran into one of my actual, at-the-time co-workers. We made brief eye-contact and he smiled sheepishly at me, his crisply ironed shirt betraying a simple fact that his, unlike mine, was not a social visit — a fun fact I immediately shared with my friend. When he asked me what I thought of working with that guy, it took me a good beat to register his confusion and realize that I wasn’t speaking in English anymore.

With globalization though, my trick is starting to lose its powers. With time, post-Soviet Russians are looking less and less Soviet, and it’s becoming harder and harder to discern them from other Europeans. No longer can I reliably assume that I should keep my Russian wisecracks to a minimum on Brighton Beach and let loose in a small Tuscan town. In one such town, we sat down for lunch at a quaint little restaurant. Unable to speak Italian to a waitress who didn’t speak English, we perused the menu for something recognizable. “‘Pollo’ это курица,” I muttered (‘pollo’ is chicken), to which our waitress exclaimed that she’s from Moldova and would be happy to take our order in Russian! We had a lovely meal and learned a valuable lesson that afternoon.

Although English dominates in my life now, it’s still a privilege to pick up a Russian book, or to muse at the labels at the Russian market, and even to cringe at Russian shows streaming from grandma’s RussTV. I’m surprised to find that I comprehend Russian on some deeper, primal level. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse, for me, listening to Russian pop songs is certainly a form of torture. Why? Because I actually hear all of the words! Something I can’t honestly say about songs in English. I find these songs nonsensical and ridiculously melodramatic, even though I understand that translating them to English would result in something remarkably similar to our own Top 40 and would produce in me a sort of easy euphoria instead of baffled loathing.

But perhaps, I’ll forever be stuck in linguistic purgatory. At times, certain letter combinations — CMA.. KPE.. — trigger momentary disorientation — “Russian?” my brain wonders, before I right it again. And other times I find myself unable to summon quite the right words, in the right language, to express some critical thought. In these moments, when my mind goes blank and my eyes search the faces around me for telepathic understanding, I feel mute and foolish. For better or worse, people interpret that as aloofness and skepticism. My vocabulary is not in question, because I sound American enough. I know that, because one day people just stopped asking me where I’m from.

There are still times though, especially after polishing off a few bottles of wine with my immigrant friends, when I let my Russian accent come out to play. I layer it on thick, like a slab of butter on fresh dark rye. It feels silly and decadent to savor every rolled R and exaggerated ING. I’m amongst friends, and we’re all a bit tipsy. We share little bilingual secrets and simply understand each other.