Home » Life » Can That Damn Accent!

Can That Damn Accent!

By Shiraza Ibrahim November 2, 2007 at 12:58 PM

Font size:

If you must acquire something, go buy a house. Or an elephant. Even some mutual funds for all I care.

Don't go get yourself an "accent" just because you live in America. Or London. And please don't get one if you live in Australia. This is my account from living in two continents literary worlds apart in thought, action and especially speech, even though they speak the exact same language.

The Queens English, Ma'am. Thank you very much.

For as long as I can remember I've had a strong aversion to anyone from the South Asian continent who speaks with a Western accent. I think you know who you are, and I think you know what I mean.

Growing up in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in the 1980's when student exchange programs were big, many kids would go to Australia for six months and when they returned, we couldn't understand what they said for the next three weeks. Which I always thought funny, because half my childhood was spent in different parts of the world, yet I always managed to keep my accent intact (Super Woman, or what?).

With cable TV, sitcoms and MTV coming into play, young locals with heavily laced accents, feigning to be either Ross or Rachel, or both are a dime a dozen. Sri Lankans fail to realize that the English we speak is quite clear, as is. Especially comparatively, with our neighboring Indian brothers, no insult intended.

An accent is a part of a person's charm.

To all the local radio personalities who were ever given 10 minutes of airtime, my advice is, if you are going with a British accent stick with it. Please, don't switch to a Yankee one in mid-sentence. You lose credibility with your listeners. They lose faith and begin to think you are cover versions or something equally bad.

Since I've moved to Boston, I've had the "privilege" (sarcasm intended) of meeting many, many people who in all probability, were, a-short-time-ago nice Hindi-speaking charmers studying at some Maha Vidyalaya or the other. What they sound like in their feigned accent is quite repugnant.

There is this one girl I ran into who went to a school in Kerala that prescribed that students speak only in Malayalam (in addition to only parting their hair in the middle). I will go easy on her very African-American (think Queen Latifah from Living Single) accent considering her English deprivation in school. Letting her hair down is fine, but putting on such an "act"-cent gnaws at me.

Then you find the "dudes" who consider the twang a necessary part of their fashion repertoire, along with their GAP sweaters and the Tommy Jeans that serve as uncompensated walking billboards for the companies.

Let me be gentle. I won't go off at all on the ABCDs, considering that for these unfortunate souls the American twang is a birth defect, my son included. It's the émigrés with the accent that get my goat.

The beauty of Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas, their physical beauty aside, which, by the way isn't too shabby, comes from their conscious effort to retain their ethnicity. Ethnicity is ingrained, it is a part of who we are and it is reflected in the way we speak. Ain't nothing wrong with that. How many of their films have you avoided because you couldn't understand their Hispanic accent? I would suspect, none. Desperado is an all-time favorite male movie.

Yet Americans seem to have this prejudice against outsourced workers in India. My American friends obnoxiously claim to simply not understand Joe Shmoe Patel (who is paid $0.60/hourly) to call you at 1.30 am Bangalore time to sell you that unneeded long distance calling plan. He is just doing his job. Don't hold that against him. He didn't get into it lightly; he had to take classes to learn to speak with an American accent only to be told that you don't understand him. Is it his accent or the fact that you hold him responsible for another lost job?

Sure there are those who claim that if you don't pick up an accent Americans won't understand you. I work with enough semi-intelligent Americans who don't understand a "can't" from a "caan't." But I am convinced that if you consistently say a word clearly with proper diction they are going to understand you. That's it. We don't need to bend over backwards to speak the way they speak. Where's the originality in that? Moreover, how superficial are we that we forget how we speak the minute we leave the old country.

Think about it. An accent can be lost faster than a bad boyfriend. All it takes is two minutes to make up your mind, and two seconds for your tongue to switch gears.

Share on:

Digg

Comments (11 posted)

buttermilk July 1, 2010 at 7:14 PM

I agree with you one 100% I hate it when people from SL move to the US and then a couple of years later ends up in a thick accent!
Whats up with that? Pretentious or what? To them I say
get over your self! Its soo obvious you\'r trying too hard!

LankanBoy June 12, 2010 at 5:10 AM

to srikanthraman. atrocious accent my foot. just cus indians have a comical air mouthed accent dosent mean u hav to hate on the more refined and clearer accent of the islanders. yes we all noe how well our cricket commentors speak english and our players as well (SANGAKKARA!!!). its alot bttr than that annoying drawl that ur ones use. the island accent is bttr. get over it. even we as brown people cant help laffin and feeling sorry about your hopeless accent.

KM August 31, 2009 at 6:34 PM

Two words this writer might want to look up, Racist and Egotistical. Get over yourself already.

Sandy July 8, 2009 at 11:47 AM

I had a very Indo-British accent and vocabulary when I first came to the US. I had to repeat myself 2-3 times before being understood... It was simply easier to adapt and speak with a \'twang\' and call a \'torch\' a \'flashlight\'

Frank Griffin July 5, 2009 at 4:28 PM

What would bother me is when there was a miscommunication, the call center people would say I needed to speak louder all the time. I always felt this was to cover up the mistake that were made but who knows since the call was going around the world. If I can understand them I have no problem with Indian call centers.

Shrikant Raman February 28, 2009 at 2:24 PM

Well I don\'t quite agree with what the foolish writer says. Srilankans sound atrocious when they speak English. If you hear what the srilankan cricket commentators speak, you\'d realize that they sound horrible. The english spoken by people in Bombay, India is close to neutral english. I myself had a strong Tamil accent which I lost later. I worked in callcentres for a long time and I lost my tamil accent. Today I speak english with a neutral accent although people still comment that I sound British. Learning an accent s necessary when you move to another country. Your english must be understood by people of that country and in order to do so you must modify your accent and pronunciation. Period.

Apurva Patel January 1, 2009 at 3:05 PM

Wow! Shiraza Ibrahim is an amazingly insecure person! When she says, The Queen\'s English, Ma\'am. Thank you very much; I am even more confused. Does she mean we should speak with a clipped London English accent? Let me assure you that no on the sub-continent is trained to speak like that! Even our English teachers could not be understood if sent to UK!
And why should we not adapt to the standard English in the state or country we adopt and choose to live in? I have met quite a few Sri Lankans and none of them even come close to speaking English as it is spoken in South Mumbai or South Delhi! Give me a break please write in Gujarati or Sinhalese and leave us to love our acquired accents.

mahi May 24, 2008 at 7:10 AM

Has the author Shiraza Ibrahim never tried to sound American, Australian or British? If you think wearing salwar-kameez, bindi on our foreheads, smelling like cooking oil and talking with heavy accents will land us jobs, opportunities and garner respect from people, you might living in a dreamworld. She is a racist and extremely insensitive. What makes her think Sri Lankans speak English better than Indians? Does Sri Lanka have 20 states each with their languages making English speaking sound different when spoken by Indians?

Shirley March 4, 2008 at 8:35 AM

What kind of High and Mighty throne is this writer/nit wit sitting on?
She\'s a racist. Maybe the rest of us should analyze her name.

Priya Jakhmola December 12, 2007 at 5:36 AM

I totally disagree with the author’s views in the article “Can That Damn Accent!” An accent is a part of language pronunciations that are standard to regions/community where they are used. When you speak English with the accent of your own mother tongue, you are actually mixing two languages together and that often brings about problems of miscommunication, incomprehension and discrimination. We have chosen to become a part of the American society and learning the language as it is spoken here is a part of assimilation into that society. And that does not mean we are losing our identity – it just means we are smart enough to master the language of a region in its entirety. Contrary to what author says, dropping an accent does not take 2 minutes – it takes several years and a constant effort. And since not all of us are movie stars who are charming no matter what, picking on the accent of our new community will only help improve comprehension, reduce miscommunication and assimilate us better in this society, so go for it.