The English language is a strange conglomeration of words from everywhere (or so it seems). There are times when the words seem to not make a lot of sense/cents. Why do we have so many words that either are spelled the same, but pronounced different from each other [read which sounds like reed, or read which sounds like red] or are spelled different, but pronounced the same (see example just given)?
Then, of course, you also have different ways of spelling the same word (color vs. colour). To further mess the language up, we then have folks who speak these words with an "accent" (a-lu-mi-num vs. al-yu-mihn-yum). Often *how* we pronounce words will give the listener a strong clue as to where we grew up or received our education.
So why am I bothering to talk about this? Well...it was on my mind because I heard a lot of different uses of English words today, some of which I didn't understand because of how the words were being pronounced. If I, as a person who speaks American-English, cannot understand, how do others (for whom English is NOT their first language) understand? How was I to know that "Soopy-doopy" meant "Super-Duper"? :-)
Just some musings about language...
Margie
5 comments:
Does anyone besides me have a strange accent in their native language -- either an accent that no one can quite place, or one that belongs to a place other than where you grew up?
Ingrid
I think there are actually a lot of TCKs who have a "strange" accent - which many cannot place. I just wish I had had one of those unique accents...it would have given me a lot of leniency from folks here in the US. Besides - I love accents! :-)
Margie
language is fun and funny. when i was teaching english in bahrain we went over the difference between "pick your nose" (to choose) and "pick your nose" (to, uh, clean it out so to speak).
When I taught English in China, I always feared that one of my students would eventually make a translation error (many of them planned to become translators for foreign companies.) I always worried about some international incident caused by a lousy translation between two people who are speaking a form of English which is very much a second language. Of course, there are plenty of translation errors that I make even though I'm a native speaker--people are always misunderstanding my intent if not my words.
I found I was told I had NO accent even though I was born and raised in the deep south and can, at will, turn that accent on if I want. Overseas, I learned to pronounce each syllable clearly and to remove any twangs. I said coca cola, not coke. When I got back to the US nobody could tell where I was from and many assumed midwest. I still think I carry the 'no accent' with me - 30 years later. It's fun and interesting to see how things that happened years ago still affect who we are today. Yvonne
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