culture braid

tonight on the bus i sat near a man speaking hindi on his cell phone, and just when i had nestled into the cadence of his speech patterns, the edgy recognizable spurts of english broke through for the span of a phrase, then retreated to his native tongue.

i love hearing people blend languages, cultures, and histories. i'm used to moments like these on the bus, the most common of which are the twists and turns of spanish and english. later during the same night, a german woman cooed to her child, and then responded in english to her seat mate.

what stuck with me though, was one of the english phrases peeking through hindi, "he has conquered lots of things--Texas, Turkey, Christianity, and Muslim."

indeed.