Accents
Someone told my wife today that she doesn't like her accent and doesn't like all those hispanics coming to our country with their funny accents and etc, ad nauseum.I was reminded of what someone told me when I was very young - around 18 years old and I was working at a bookstore and a very genteel and somewhat elderly lady walked in and she was looking for a specific book and I noticed that she had an accent and I asked where she was from. She was from Germany.
I told her I liked her accent. Which was true, because I love accents. Frankly, I love all accents, because they hide so much more than what they reveal, but
she replied, "I don't haff unt accent. YOU haff unt accent!"
At the time I didn't understand. She told me that she had been speaking English longer than I'd been alive, and that therefore SHE had the "leg up" on what was English and what was not. I came afterward, therefore, I had the accent, along with the however-subtle implication of non-fluency.
That was her point then. Now I see it as this: everybody has an accent, regardless of whether the language is your primary, secondary, tertiary, or whatever - the way we form the sounds of the words is nothing more than the way our palattes were formed during the years in which we were learning whatever vocales from whatever language in which we were immersed.
Simply put: we've all got an accent. It should not be used as an insult, and should not be used as an insult to impune someone's fluency.
Accent does not indicate fluency, or lack thereof.
Let's face it - we've all probably met people who've learned English as a second language who are far more fluent than some backwards "Americans" who can't conjugate the simplest noun-verbs.
Insert your own jokes here! (I know you know some!)
Think about it, everybody who's reading this. Think. Learn. Grow,
VG
posted by Verble Gherulous @ 5:02 PM
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