He came to England just over forty years ago - from Jamaica - and his accent is so strong that sometimes I have to ask him to say that again. He has the same problem with my accent and he often asks me to slow down so that he can hear just what it is I have to say.
We have known each other for nearly twenty years now but still find our accents a minor stumbling block.
I was just wondering to myself is this a Jamaican/Irish thing or do other folk, far away from home, have this difficulty ?
Some accents I can process without missing a beat. Others cause me trouble. Usually when I hear an accent that makes me wonder what language they’re speaking I mentally repeat what they said, as close to as they say it as I can, and it becomes clearer.
I think this is part of the ‘take on the speaker’s accent’ issue that some people get insulted about.
When I was in England, my American accent got me into a bit of trouble in a couple of pubs…in both cases I had ordered “baked beans” on my jacket potato, and the person who took my order insisted I’d said “bacon”!
There are places in the U.S. where a particular accent is so thick it can be hard for other Americans to understand it…parts of the deep South, for example…though TV is changing things to some extent.
Once, not too long after I moved South, I was exiting a parking lot late at night. The attendant said something completely incomprehensible to me, and I had him repeat it many times. I still had no idea, so I drove off. I went back the next day and explained, and paid them the buck or whatever. To this day I have no idea how “one dollar” or “two dollars” became “mahff mmm mfftbth bttfmth.”
I went to graduate school with a Dublin native. I had no idea he was Irish because he picked up an American accent so quickly. But when he was talking to his parents on the phone, evidently it all changed. I remember his housemate saying, “Tony, I didn’t know you spoke Gaelic with your parents.” The American accent got him into trouble once at a lab in the UK once. There was a scheduling meeting, which got a little heated, and one guy said, “You Americans are never satisfied till you get your way,” to which he responded, “I’m not American, I’m Irish.” Not really the thing to say to get your way when a bunch of English folk have your fate in their hands, which he presently realized.
When one of my Irish friends was visiting me, I took her to the place where I worked at the time and introduced her around. The next day when I was back at work, one of my co-workers said it was so nice to meet someone from Ireland, etc, etc. Then she said, “And she speaks such good English!”
When I very politely explained that, well, that’s what they speak in Ireland, she was stunned. She really had no idea that they spoke English in Ireland.
The scary thing is, this woman was a retired school teacher!
That’s OK. I’m more appalled at the number of people who don’t realize there’s such a thing as an Irish language! When I tell people I’m learning Irish, they usually look at me blankly and say “why do you want to speak with an Irish accent???”
Its not so much the accent that throws me with some people, but the way they use words, or colloquialisms that I don’t recognize or understand. These can really throw me off. Once I get thrown off beat, following sentences seem to get harder to understand.
Seems that there are two separate, if related, things:
Understanding a different accent
Adapting your own accent
Case #1:
I grew up on the US west coast, but an area that had a high percentage of Dust Bowl refugees from north Texas and Oklahoma. So although I normally speak “West Coast” American English, it’s mostly by choice, and I tend to revert if exposed to anything close to what I grew up with. Anywhere from Texas to Tenessee, I find myself adapting to the local accent within a few days. But other, unfamiliar, accents don’t affect me that way at all - even if I have no difficulty understanding them, my own accent doesn’t adjust to match.
Case #2:
My wife isn’t a native English speaker, but had studied English in school from a very early age.
When we first met, her written English was very good (better than most US high school graduates - in college, they put her in the advance writing class). But unless you spoke slowly, she couldn’t follow spoken English very well. And her own accent when speaking was pretty thick.
Now, after spending half her life in the US, she can understand most American accents of English as fast as they can be spoken, but she still has a hard time dealing with other accents and dialects. When we were visiting Britain and Ireland last summer she occasionally had to ask people to repeat themselves.
Her own accent has reduced quite a bit, too. Still there - nobody would mistake her for a native speaker - but our kids don’t even notice it; to them, rather than an accent it’s just “how Mom speaks”. It has affected me, too - though my own Cantonese is nearly nonexistant, I have a lot less trouble understanding English with a strong Cantonese accent than most of my coworkers.
D.
There are idioms and structures that dominate our heritage, Jamican, Irish, New Yorker, Cajun, whatever. With true friends, each trusts in the respect, each trusts the bond between them. As a result, friends relax with each other and feel free to be themselves, accents included. If your Irish, and your friend’s Jamican, I’m sure both of you, after 20 years, could speak a fairly clean formal english. But friendship give each of you the freedom, to trust that the other will understand. Each of you wants the other to relax and be true to your own heritage. So the persistance of your accents with each other would seem to me a testimonial to the depth of your friendship.
As to the issue of adopting other’s accents, I think this is a positive thing.
There are folks that focus on comunicating effectively. I, for one, tend to pick up other’s accents not because I’m trying to be them, but so I can comunicate better. I’m am willing to learn the other’s language including their idioms, slang, and cadenses. I have lived for the past 30 years in the mid-Atlantic states urban areas. But my relatives all come from the south. I could continue my own dialect and speak twice as fast as my kin down south. But then, the’d be ever asking me to “say again”. Instead, I slip into their drawl and say it slower, with the vowels and rythyms their used to hearing. They hear it, I do it without thinking because my focus is not on saying what I want to say, but rather, my focus is on being heard. Folks that get offended, when an American comes to Ireland and tries to pick up some of the Irish dialect (of english, not gaelic), need to be more secure in their own heritage. It’s not fakery, it’s simple appreciation. It more wanting to build bridges over the water versus trying to say that both river banks are the same. Though I use by example Amercans and Ireland, I could have just as easily used the Bronx or the Louisianna Bayou. Sharing cultures enriches our lives, accents are just part of local cultures.
If I’d been talking to my kin, upon concluding this post, I’d say
You’all …
My family left Dublin when I was 2 and I spent the next 5 years in Toronto. Then, the next year was back in Dublin, then off to California. I remember clearly arriving in Dublin at the age of 7 and not being able to understand a work out of kids’ mouths for awhile. (This was the low rent district, also.) I adapted and spent a hellish year with the Christian Brothers in school. A year later, I arrived in California with a Dublin accent, which I quickly realized was odd and adopted an American one in no time, it being not so different than the Canadian. We’d still drop embarrassing colloquialisms we heard around the house. My mom sent us to the local store to by a pacifier for the baby, but she sent us for a “soother,” which I pronounced ‘sooder.’ I knew another Irish term for it was ‘titty,’ but I had an instinct not to use that one. All I got from the store clerk was a slack-jawed stare.
Tony
I always thought I had quite a neutral accent, but then I went on holiday to the west coast of America and there were a few people who couldn’t understand what I was saying (there was also a few who thought I was English, they were politely corrected). Also when I visit friends in England they take the piss out of my accent and start quoting Taggart at me “There’s been a murder!”. Bastards.
As for understanding others I have trouble just understanding other Scottish accents. Well one in particular. Thankfully Glaswegians never say anything worth hearing anyway.
I usually don’t have a huge problem understanding someone who is “English as a second language”. My grandfather spoke with a heavy German accent (although born in Cincinnati, he didn’t learn English until after 6th grade). I’ve worked with many from other countries, so have become accustomed to listening well.
I’m also fairly well with southern accents and those from Nawlins. I also find my "I"s getting longer the further south I get from the Ohio River! I grew up with many “misplaced Appalachians” so I tend to adapt that pretty easy (and have been told I have a Southern accent, while I don’t think I do!).
I also think being musically inclined helps when listening to other accents. We are used to hearing tones, and speech inflections are really just different tones.
Unfortunately, I cannot speak or read but the little bit of French I took in high school. I think it’s sad how we in the US don’t learn other languages from grade school. I’m always impressed when working with people from other countries, and they are fluent in 3, 4, or more languages.
Years ago as a student I was hitch-hiking down to Durham from Edinburgh. (I’m a Belfastian.) I was dropped off in Newcastle. I asked for directions. I was told them. I did not understand a b*ggering word that was said to me. Not even “the”. They might have been taking the mickey, as Geordies have no great love for Irish Accents. They could have been insulting me or reciting Shakespeare - I just couldn’t make out one word. I ended up walking overnight from Newcastle to Durham. A long walk, but I made it.
Now I work for a software company that writes software for Housing Associations. The IT departments of Housing Associations seemed to be stocked entirely by people from what once were Empire Colonies. And I can now tell the difference between a Northern Nigerian (a Hill-man) and a Southern Nigerian (a plains-man) from the way they speak English. And make out different regions of India. If I came accross any Geordies I might even be able to understand them now.
Not just the accents, but also the local phrases thrown in with them are great craic.
eg.
“that was an ojis sessiun last nite!” Cavan
“hes a wild tight man to kick a ball” Donegal
“your an absolute langer by!” Cork
“goin for scoops with the mott!” Dublin
“did ya get into a wee bit of a handling?” Fermanagh
When some relatives of mine moved to the United States, I could not understand them. My language skills were not great, but I could converse with my parents. These other relatives were from the next village over–20 miles plus 20 years made for a dialect that I could not parse.
Even today, the vast majority of the people in the world, never travel more than 50 miles from where they are born. If you are person that enjoys travel, it is an incredible age to live in. Travel is less expensive and more readily available than ever. Very few places are off limits.
The leveling of language and accents is one thing I can thank television and the mobility of modern society for. There remain a few isolated pockets with near incomprehensible dialects, and there are subcultures with slang that no outsider can parse. However, television is the great leveler, virtually guaranteeing that the people can understand each other.
