The Sound of Language Read Online Free PDF Page A

liked her teacher, Christina Møllehave, best among all the Danish people she had met. Christina spoke Danish very slowly and very clearly. Raihana could actually understand some of what Christina said because she didn't mumble like so many other Danes did. And she took the time to explain what a Danish word meant each time a student asked.
    Once she began school, Raihana's life fell into a routine. Everyone at home woke up early, got ready, ate breakfast, and battled with Shahrukh to eat his slice of bread with butter and jam and a boiled egg.
    Kabir dropped Shahrukh at his day care on his way to school. Kabir went to handelsskole , a business school where Danes who didn't want to go to university went to after high school. Kabir had finished high school in Afghanistan, but that had been a long time ago. Most of his classmates were almost fifteen years younger than him. He felt awkward, not only because of their age, but also because they were all Danes. After going to language school where everyone was a foreigner, it was strange to go to a class where he was the only foreigner.
    Layla and Raihana bicycled to the language school. Usually they went together, but sometimes Layla got a late start. She watched too many Hindi movies at night and couldn't always wake up on time.
    It had taken Raihana awhile to get used to bicycling everywhere. She had been scared in the beginning, worried that a car would run her over, but with the passing months she gained confidence.
    Language school was tough. The first week, Raihana felt like crying all the time because she felt as if she understood very, very little. She felt she spent as much time looking through the Danish-to-Dari dictionary as she did listening to Christina. She pieced her sentences together with her little knowledge of Danish and translated words from the dictionary.
    The language was not easy. The way Danish was written was not how it was spoken. Danes swallowed half their words and letters when they spoke and there were no rules.
    “You won't learn Danish by tomorrow,” Christina had warned the class. “I know the pronunciation is difficult. But I promise, you'll learn the language.”
    Raihana thought she'd never be able to speak Danish fluently, not the way Layla could, and she said as much to her.
    “It took me six months to get to where you are,” Layla told Raihana, sounding a little annoyed. “You've picked up so much in a week, it's astonishing.”
    Raihana didn't really believe that, but felt a small surge of satisfaction at having impressed Layla.
    “I learned so much from the television,” she said. “And you,” she added to please Layla.
    Wahida, who came from Kandahar, sat next to Raihana. There was also a woman from Iran, two from Bosnia, and one from Malaysia.
    “How come there are only women here?” Raihana asked Wahida on her first day. “Where do the men learn Danish?”
    “There are men,” Wahida said. “Just none in our class. My cousin Asslam is in module 2, but in a module 2 class for immigrants who have no education. He has class on Monday and Tuesday and his praktik is at the butcher.”
    “What does he do there?” Raihana asked.
    “Cuts meat.” Wahida said and then her voice dropped. “Even pig's meat. He hasn't said anything to anyone, but my husband told me. It's an evil world that makes a good Musalman soil his hands so.”
    “Why can't he find a praktik elsewhere?” Raihana asked.
    “These Danes, they force us into such situations,” Wahida said acidly. “They make us do these jobs so that we won't be Muslim anymore. You should wear a hi jab and abaya , Raihana, walking around like this… it's not right. You have to show them that you are a good Muslim woman.”
    “I don't think a Muslim woman is good because she wears a hi jab and abaya,” Raihana said tightly.
    Afghans like Wahida believed that wearing a hi jab and abaya made them better Muslims and who was Raihana to argue with that? Everyone had their own