Letters from Grenada

I crossposted yesterday’s “on accents” to my Tumblr, and two of the responses (reblogs) I got were so interesting I can’t resist quoting them here.

The first to weigh in was adsinfinitum, who wrote:

Another point of interest for me is how people are so determined to assign you an accent. How they feel the need to place you by saying “Oh, you sound like this, therefore you come from there. I know you now.” I’m South African, and the SA accent is a most curious thing – no rounded British vowels, no Stateside drawl, no flattened Ozzie twang as a marker. Its defining characteristic is its total lack of a defining characteristic. And yet, people persist in saying, “Oh, are you from England? From Australia?” – even once, “From Russia?” I wonder whether we divide people into nationalities by hearing them because it makes us feel more secure – whether once we decide where someone’s come from, we believe we know where they’re going.

Then catty1 shared:

I’m Bahamian and one of my cousins is Jamaican.  I spent a fair amount of my childhood thinking that she spoke French because I often couldn’t understand a damn thing she was saying.  And I was super impressed with how well my mom understood French!  Even now, 30 years later, she’ll say something and my brain will just blank … and by all accounts she’s “lost” her accent.  HA!

I was tickled by both of these posts. Partly because I think they reinforce my assertion that it’s all about perspective. But I also appreciate the insight that naming someone’s accent is often – consciously or unconsciously – about stuffing a person into a category. It reminds me of that question, the one that’s all too familiar to any American of mixed racial background: “What are you?” And I laughed out loud when catty1’s story about thinking Jamaican English was French, because I happen to speak French, and when I first arrived in Grenada, I couldn’t get over how much Grenadian English reminded me of French. It’s something about the rhythm, musical cadences and the rising of the voice at the end of sentences. The Grenadian lexicon is also peppered with French words, the remnants, I imagine, of Grenada’s time as part of France’s colonial empire.

Posted on January 24th, 2010 under Grenada • Tags: accents, caribbean, early days, expat, Grenada, living abroad, other blogs, reblogs, responses, the Grenadian lexicon, tumblr, west indian. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed