Author: Erin

Vicky

I was born in Argentina then I moved to Spain and grew up there. As the Spanish language has different accents, “argentinian” or better said rioplatense variation, is one of the most joked about variations in the hispanic community because of its intonation, the sound of /s/ instead of the dental /z/ from peninsular Spain or the sound of /sh/ in some words such as yerba (“sherba”). When I read any sort of text at school teachers would correct my accent, my classmates would say that they could not understand me or they would try to make me speak to laugh.

Since then, I almost suppressed my accent because as a child, it was something I felt I had to do to fit in. And now, if I’m talking and suddenly a weird intonation comes out of my mouth I have the impression that I will be “the argentinian” in the place and not just myself. I also used to feel very ashamed if my mother talked to me with her accent in front of people so I would always have an angry face if she did so. I tried to fix my accent because sadly not everyone will talk to me the same way as they would if they knew I speak “argentinian”. My hope is that this concept changes one day :).

Cordobés

Mi pueblo es significativamente seseante  con ciertos rasgos de jejeo. En primer lugar, el jejeo ha sido siempre atacado y vapuleado desde los centros educativos por ser considerado «cateto, paleto y obsoleto al ser un rasgo de analfabetismo», por otro lado he visto como gente de mi generación ha sido adoctrinada por sus propios progenitores para que hicieran clara distinción entre c,z y s, con el pretexto de que ese uso diferenciado denota un mayor grado de educación, llegando algunos incluso a sentirse superiores por ser capaces de distinguir las tres letras a la hora de ser pronunciadas. Al trasladarme a Granada a estudiar, las personas horiundas de mi zona que no distinguían entre c,z y s comienzan a hacerlo desesperadamente (la distinción entre estas letras en la capital granadina ha aumentado en los últimos años de forma vertiginosa gracias al impulso de las generaciones más jovenes). Si hablamos ya de mis experiencias propias fuera de Andalucía he tenido que soportar (junto con otros amigos procedentes de provincias como Sevilla o Cádiz) la provocación de ciertos individuos que de repente deciden que les apetece insultar a los andaluces por analfabetos, por tener una dicción incomprensible y ser una vergüenza para el resto de españoles en el extranjero. No obstante, he de resaltar que la opinión de los amigos extranjeros sobre nuestro acento está en las antípodas: al hablar en inglés suelen decir que tenemos un acento andaluz precioso, atractivo, interasente e incluso que nuestro uso del seseo tiene «musicalidad» y es único. Espero que los fervientes castellanos nunca se enteren de este dato último, vaya que de repente el acento andaluz pase de ser horrible a una maravilla española y olé.

Maiko

Hablando de tener acento andaluz y de cómo, al hablar mucho por teléfono en el trabajo, trataba de neutralizar un poco el acento para que me entendieran mejor:

«Pero entonces, si sabes hablar bien, ¿por qué hablas así?»

No se me olvidará en la vida.

Valérie

Je suis du sud ouest de la France et je me souviens d’une visite dans un musée parisien avec mes élèves anglais (à ce moment-là, j’étais prof en Angleterre). Je suis allée à la consigne du musée pour voir si les élèves pouvaient y laisser leurs sacs à dos.

La jeune femme ne me comprenait pas ou à peut-être voulu se payer ma tête. Je me suis donc mise à parler anglais et lui ai demandé de parler à sa chef. Quand elle a entendu mon accent en anglais, elle n’a plus su quoi faire. Très humiliant, dans ton propre pays…

Liz

So I am northern Italian, which is already a bit of a strange accent for Italy (long vowels, many consonants fall, etc.), then I moved to England and lived first in Yorkshire where my best friend is from, and then in Oxford, but with two Irishmen and a Scot in the house, and then I met my future husband who is a Welshman raised in Norfolk. The result? After four years in England, I developed what has been recently defined by a friend of mine a ‘Eurotrash’ accent, with bits of Irish, Northern, Scot pronunciation scattered here and there across my fake-RP.

That said, I love English Northern pronunciation and every day that passes I am more and more tempted to ditch the stupid RP and just go for my northern mash!

Lily

I’m a French academic who has recently relocated to Belfast. Visiting friends in England recently, I was joking about starting to have a Northern Irish accent, especially when I say Belfast. The Englishman opposite me said “this has to be avoided at all cost”.

Anon

I am from the Black Country. Yes, everyone thinks that I am a Brummie but you know different.

However, the accent to an outsider is very much the same.

I have moved from a working class area to quite a posh area and I was actually asked once ‘Oh, you live in Hagley…..?’ err Yes, I know where I live (my accent does not reflect my social status….How can I possibly live in this area….how could I possibly afford it??)

I have moved again to Malvern and if another person in Waitrose or any other shop for that matter asks me if I am on my holidays I think I will scream!! I am sure that they must send the security guard  following me as someone who speaks like me must be a shoplifter!!

So, so cross about the accentism in this town, making me out to be ugly or uneducated.

I am actually a solvent, successful business woman but I am made to feel inferior to my neighbours and fellow residents. I did think about getting ‘accent reduction’ lessons but realised if I spoke differently, I would no longer be ‘me’

What would you do?…..I want to be able to give a meaningful response when I am asked if ‘I am on my holidays’ without being rude or cross and I would like to point out that I am not ashamed that I come from a working class background. I will always feel inferior and that I do not belong because only of my accent. It is a shame to have to face discrimination every day that I shop or chat to the locals but I can’t see anything changing anytime soon.

Antonia

The Greek I learnt at my mother’s knee was greatly modified, at the age of 7,  when I attended primary school. It was accepted that one spoke “proper”  Greek as opposed to Cypriot Greek – heavily accented and with its own words (sometimes of Homeric origin , like λαλώ) scattered here and there.

Emigrating 18 months later to London meant attending Greek school on Saturday mornings. The great and the good at the church school would hide their Cypriot origins by trying to talk “posh” with varying rates of success.

When my daughter was born, my mother kept berating me about the Cypriot I used. It needed to be cleaned up into the accepted higher level  radio Greek.

Suffice it to say that I lost interest in imparting the language to my daughter, who, having an English father. Was happy to lapse into English only.

Subsequently, I’ve heard from Greeks in Cyprus how they don’t rate their own Cypriot accent/ dialects and chose to heap scorn in those who still use it.

What their reasons for this might be, I’ll leave to conjecture. But, for a small island under occupation by a foreign country , imposing its own culture and language and further culturally compromised  by the recent entry of Overwhelming numbers of Europeans and Russians… I would have thought that self-effacement of a great part of Cypriot cultural roots would be considered by any thinking person as cultural suicide.