I have a lot of conversations that go like this:
"Where are you from?"
"The States."
"What part."
"I grew up in Atlanta."
"... Atlanta?. ... You don't have a Southern accent."
True story. I don't. I was born in Phoenix and didn't move to Georgia until I was 9, so my accent was well established by then. Aside from a few phases I picked up living in the South - y'all and hey (instead of hi) come to mind - there's hardly more than a hint of the South in the way I speak. We lived in the Atlanta metro suburbs, and not too many people I knew spoke with strong Southern accents, either, as many were fairly recent transplants to the South. In fact, my high school, was one of the most demographically diverse in the region. When I went to college an hour north of Atlanta, I encountered far more deep Southern accents, and I think I developed more of a lilt to my way of speaking then. My mom lives in Northeast Georgia now, so I suppose that's my home base, and when I return, I notice a definite creeping in of just a touch of a Southern accent, probably so slight that only I would notice it, but I just get a bit sloooower, and a wee bit more "weeelll aaaalll-riiiit, y'all."
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I always say that I have a "neutral accent." It's sort of mid-western, not really overly influenced by any particular region. That is to say, I felt that I didn't have an accent. Ha! We Americans always think about Australians in terms of their great accents; but, guess what, I live in Australia now, and it turns out that I'm the one with the accent. Who knew?!
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I learned a big lesson about how much our accents define us to other people when I worked in a call center for, like, 4 minutes (OK, three months). As part of our training, we spent time listening in to real calls with our headphones plugged into those of someone working in the call center. One day, I got paired up with an Indian girl - and when I say that she was Indian, I mean she was from India, but had clearly been in Australia far longer than I had. During the time I sat with her, you can't believe how many people started off the conversation by interrogating her about where she was located. They didn't want to be speaking to someone in an Indian call center, who (I'm projecting) they assumed would not give them adequate service or know the language well enough. It just so happened that we were in the absolute middle of Sydney, we were literally looking out the window at Town Hall, and it also just so happened that she'd worked in this call center for ages and knew how to get pretty much anything done. Callers were in far better hands with her than with a lot of us working there.
When I made it onto the phones, I baffled people. They'd call up a company in Australia and get someone with, not only not an Australian accent, but also not an accent that seemed to fit any predefined notion they had about what call center workers sound like. I also sometimes got the "where are you located?" When I said Sydney, it sometimes stopped the conversation for a second. I wondered if they were pondering if the company had moved its call center to North America.
Turns out it's a big world full of stories, and things aren't always what we expect on first encounter
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People, including us, are often curious to know how Hushpuppy's accent is going to turn out. I have my American accent, Partner-in-Crime speaks with sort of a hybrid from his European roots and the second half of his life spent in the U.S., and she is growing up in Australia.
I took this video of her the other day, and I think you can see how she's developed her own accent.
Well, makes sense to her, anyway!
How did you come up with Hushpuppy? It's so, like, Southern... :)
ReplyDeleteHushpuppy is the name of the little girl in Beasts of the Southern Wild. We loved her so-so much that we made it one of our little lady's nicknames.
DeleteI find accents in Australia fascinating. My partner's father is a Greek immigrant and he has the craziest accent. I only understand about 25% of what he says. Mostly I just smile and nod. He probably thinks I'm dim. I once talked to an American woman who'd been living here for about 25 years and she had a pretty unusual accent as well.
ReplyDeleteHybrid accents are wild. Our former Premier of NSW, Kristina Kenealy, is American, but has been here forever, and she has a very unique accent, too.
DeleteWell it makes absolutely perfect sense to me as well! It's funny that babies have the same speech patterns as they develop language- The Sprout and the Ladybug did that 'diggle' type sound. I love it- I need to get the Sprout diggling before it goes away!
ReplyDelete"Diggling!" I love that!
DeleteThat's a sweet clip. Clearly she's going to have a gorgeous accent.
ReplyDeleteYou know I've met other people from Atlanta that I didn't think sounded Southern either. And oh yes, I can recall many a conversation of people baffled to be speaking to an American working in an Australian call centre.
ReplyDeleteI was visiting my father in England a few years ago, and had cause to phone to get help on a product (I forget which one). I remember being surprised with the initial response -- a lady with a fairly broad Scottish accent (enough that I found her difficult to understand). I asked her where she was located and she was indeed in Scotland (East Kilbride, if I remember correctly). She transferred me to speak to someone with (presumably) the right technical expertise, who spoke pretty good English, but with a definite accent I couldn't identify. I asked him where he was located, and he told me "Egypt". That surprised me! But, as I recall, he was quite competent and understandable.
ReplyDeleteThat stands in contrast to the usual experience of my father calling for help: He, at over 100 years of age, has a hard time hearing, even with hearing aids, and complains that all the people who respond to his calls for help speak with very pronounced Indian accents (I've heard them, and it's very hard to understand them). His inability to hear well only makes things worse. Of course, he assumes that the person with that accent must be in New Delhi or some such place, but it's certainly possible that they could be in the UK.