Languages

I speak several different languages.
I have only lived in two places my entire life, Oklahoma and Texas, but my vocabulary is large in four different languages.


Hick comes from mah roots. Sometahmes wheen Ah get real tard or wheen Ah'm talkin' to one a mah famly members, Ah talk hick. Ah lose all dignity from mah speech and let words fall rahght off a mah tongue. Ah don't even re'lize it 'til somebody 'round me gives me a strange look. Then ah clear mah throat and move back into the proper way of speaking.
I can keep up with the business world in my speech. I can go from talkin' all hick-lahke to speaking professionally at the sound of a ringtone. When I need to put on the business suit, I clean up pretty well. I still have a tinge of hick in my voice, but I use it for charm. Who can resist a sweet Southern Belle? (I just batted my long eyelashes atcha.)
Another language I speak isn't too foreign to most. Those who took Calculus and Physics in high school--hold on, let me adjust my classes--speak and understand nerd-speech. I used to be able to keep up with the best of them when it came to derivatives and meters per second squared, but after three years without math and science, I speak more along the lines of commas and apostrophes. I speak grammar-nerd, which may very well be the worst of all nerd-speeches.
The last language I've accumulated over the years has words such as propitiation, sanctification, and salvation. Common conversations discuss daily devotionals, being called into a ministry, and the latest worship music. Since I've been speaking this language since the ripe age of birth, I tend to graze over phrases like "died on a cross for our sins" without taking into consideration what I am saying and what my audience is thinking. This language is the most important of my languages because if I never explain the words I say, and if I can never put in to different words what Jesus means to me--without speaking Christianese--I will never help build the kingdom of Heaven, or God's kingdom, or get people to go to Heaven--whichever makes most sense to you.


Languages come with cultures, and cultures define the boundaries of languages whether they mean to or not. Therefore, on any given day, I am a part of four completely different cultures--and for that I am grateful.