speaking american

i've been (re)reading the book of salt, a fictional account of gertrude stein's vietnamese cook at 27 rue de fleures in paris and there's a great passage about stein's relationship to a particularly american english--it has become something she wields with authority, something she has developed an intimate relationship with as she no longer hears it spoken (and her command of french is awkward, and unsophisticated to say the least) but only reads it in her detective novels and in letters she holds in her hand. i love this passage (and the entire novel is truly a feast of language) and have been thinking about "american" english.

a few weeks ago i arranged a playdate with a woman i had met briefly on our stay here last spring. we had planned to meet up at the playground and i described myself and owen in case she didn't remember our meeting and she laughed and said--don't worry, you'll be the only one speaking american. and like stein i realized i don't actually hear american spoken--everyone here speaks to us in english but we are accustomed to the sound of norwegian conversation, the emphatic verbal gestures of another language. last spring we were regulars at the jugenstil museum cafe and the young art student that worked there apologized for his english--we don't usually speak english here until july. and later that spring we met the goalie of the alesund team at invit when he overheard me talking to owen and said "from california? don't meet too many of us around here." so all that to say is that it is july here and officially cruise ship season. and at breakfast yesterday there was a loud, jarring sound coming from a table across the room. american! how foreign and familiar it all sounded. and yesterday while reading said book in the cafe i peered up from my very american words to hear americans exclaiming over rosemari's chocolate cake. it gave me the odd feeling you get when you hear yourself on an answering machine and you ask--do i really sound like that??