Chapter Text
America was unique for a few reasons. When your nation is built upon others colonizing your lands and indigenious people, at the detriment to whole cultures and living people, you’re going to be slightly...well, a little mixed up. He remembers a time trying to be more like Arthur, but the nagging in the back of his head always screamed about the people who were already here. But, with more Europeans coming, he kept that voice down. America, when young, didn’t find anything wrong with how he came to be but...well, time moves on and your thinking changes--or more like, your people change and grow.
Anyway, for these reasons, and since his upbringing was brought on by wave after wave of immigration, his people decided not to make a National language. Did a majority of his state’s decide to make the official language English? Sure, but he was THE nation. He was the United States of America, the federal side. And in the country as a whole, there were 350 languages being spoken daily.
Did that mean he was great at any of these languages? Absolutely not.
When he was younger, and after learning English, he could feel other people’s within his borders and tried to learn more about them. For example, when it was still called New Amsterdam, he learned Dutch. When England wasn’t around, he begged Canada to teach him more French; at the same time, when he could, he’d visit his sister to the south and try to learn Spanish. While he could hear and understand, he always spoke with his own accent and would cause his brother to cringe or his sister to outright laugh at him. So, he spoke sparingly.
It became a secret hobby. Well, his North American siblings knew, but they didn’t count really. All the others always forgot about Canada, and Mexico barely wanted to talk to the “Spanish Bastard”, as she put it nicely. Other countries didn’t visit him much at the time, so he visited the people and tried to learn from them. That’s how he learned Gaelic, Creole, German, Arabic, Russian; you name it, he tried desperately to learn.
So when Romano and Lithuania came to live with him during the wave of immigration at the turn of the century, he was so damn happy. He begged them both to teach him whenever they had free time. At first, Lithuania would humor him and teach phrases.
Toris was nice when he taught Lithunian, and some other languages his people knew. He never laughed at the other’s mispronunciations, but he could tell Lithuania would get a tired smile after a while and he just...didn’t want to bother him. It was hard enough to work and teach, Alfred guessed.
Romano on the other hand...well…
“You want me to do what?!” He hissed.
“Teach me Italian!” America begged.
“Why?” Romano narrowed his eyes, “What are you planning?”
America tilted his head, “I just want to learn. I can hear it, and I can kind of understand you, but it's...it's like reading without glasses.”
“Listening to me is like reading without glasses…” Romano was now confused, “Listen bastard. Haven’t I already done enough learning your damn English? Why do you care about my language?”
“I want to understand the people that come,” America explained with his typical big smile, “I’ve been going to Manhattan and Chicago often and I want to help the newcomers, but,” he gave a small shrug, “there’s been some...miscommunications. I want to help, Lovino!”
Romano continued to scowl, but seemed to twitch with uncertainty, “They will have to learn English anyway. It is YOUR language.”
America blinked, tilting his head, “So?”
“So?” Romano scoffed, “It would be pointless to learn then!”
“No it won’t!” America countered, “They’ll learn it in school and at work, yeah, but the people ALWAYS keep their language at home, and in their neighborhoods. I promise, they will be speaking YOUR language too.”
Romano gaped at the other, while heat rose to his cheeks. Was it because knowing that his people, while soon no longer his, would still always be kind of part of him? That America seemed genuine in his speech? Maybe it was just the shock that this wasn’t like Spain, who wanted him and his people to know Spanish, and this time he had more of a choice.
But, still, he was skeptical, “It’s….it’s not official Italian,” he spoke softly, “it’s a different dialect. A lot of the people come from Sicily.”
“Even better!” America cheered, “Besides, every time I speak a language it sounds different anyway.”
“Oh?” Lovino raised an eyebrow.
“Jis mande frè mwen an,” America grinned in his French.
“...what?”
“Ask Mattie,” America chuckled.
And so began the journey of teaching America. America was surprised by how, after knowing Spanish, it really wasn’t that hard. But, he enjoyed the little phrases and colloquialisms Romano shared. That was the thing when you only learned via nation-magic (as he called it), some things were always lost in translation.
He enjoyed when he would say something so off Romano would look aghast, hit him with a wooden spoon (lessons were usually during when Romano was cooking), and make him try again. In thanks, America tried to teach Romano the ins and outs of the city, some local phrases, and where to find the best ingredients in town. (He also tried taking both him and Tolys to a rodeo and to teach them horseback riding. It went...as well as one would expect). To be honest, he would have done this anway, but Romano would have hemmed and hawed about it, so better to just be in thanks,
What was even more fun was when Lithuania, Romano, and him would do a sort of round robin of phrases and sentences. It was fun to compare three different languages. What was even better was when America would throw in a fourth or fifth language, or saying, and get the other two to laugh.
But, all good things come to an end. Their end was when, one day, America suddenly collapsed. It took the two of them, lots of stemming off official phone calls, and rushing to turn on a radio to figure out what was happening. By the time America really knew what was happening, both his dear friends were looking at him sadly with the news they should probably return back to their homes.
The rest was history (pun intended). Life went on, wars were fought and won (mostly), and America’s vocabulary grew with mostly the aid of the people in the streets. And hey, while no one else really knew how much he could speak, it really helped him and Mattie out when they were lost in a foreign country.
That, and helping lost new arrivals and tourists. It was always his pleasure to be the hero.