Ananda Language Autobiography

Some people in my family say i have the personality of an old person sometimes. Now if you happen to be one of my friends reading this you would probably not think this at all. When it comes to my family we are very small and close nite leaving only a small portion of younger kids, me, my cousin and my niece. soon i wont be in that catgorey because of my age. Anyway I spend a lot of time, sometimes with my grandparents. The more i am around them the more there sayings rub off on me. I start to act and talk just like them. The difference with this is that it never last long once im not around them i stop talking that way, its not something i prefer but it happens.

When Im with my mom I try to talk a little proper. Only a little. My mom is a little up to date with slang but when i start to speak with slang a lot she does not always know what i am saying so i stop, and go back to talking proper. Mainly because i dot feel like explainging to her what these different sayings actually mean. Also, since in my home there is only my mom and i living there so the two of us have sayings or words that we make up for fun. When other people come around they may not know what we are talking about. A lot of the things that we say may be something silly but that’s how we make things in this house interesting. Also i talk the same way with my teachers.

When i usually go on vacation down south to visit my family I stay for at least two weeks. As they talk in their southern accents i began to pick up on it as well. I pick up on it even more when im with the kids that are around my age. One day while i was hanging with my cousins we were in the backyard playing on the swing set, my cousin broke it because she was to big. We all got scared thinking we would get in trouble this had only been my third day there we all started to yell at each other there accents began to become stronger and stronger. The more they talked the more i started to sound just like them. There accents had rubbed off on me so much just from that day and we started to sound alike the rest of the time while i was there.

I feel like most of the time when i am talking I talk the way i talk with my friends. Also most of the time i am with my friends and that might be why. When talking to my friends we all use a straight up slang dialect there are times when someone may have to stop us and ask what something we say means. Also in all honesty when talking to my friends we use profanity. When my friends and I talk to each other it may seem like we talk as if we don’t respect each other.

This is called code switching. I think code switching matters because it shows how society changes us with little things like the way we talk. Sometimes we don’t even notice it. I think code switching shows that no one is really comfortable with themselves or feel like they have to change the way they are for certain people, and society should not make people feel like that.

Here is an example of how I would talk to friends compared to my mom.

Friends- Heyyy Gurl.!

Me- ayeee wassup

Friend – nuffin much chillen wat chu bout to get yourself into chick?

Me- I don’t even know child lol bout to get on twitter or somethin and hit up some peoples, imma catch you later tho.

Friend – ard peace

This is how I would talk to my mom in the same convo

Mom- Hi ananda

Me- Hey mom how are you?

Mom – im fine what are you about to do

Me- I might get on the computer not really sure. I might call up some friends. I will see you in a bit

Mom ok bye Ananda

When it comes to me I mostly code switch from how I talk to my mom to how I talk to my friends. You can find out a lot about me also when you hear how I talk to my friends. Everyone uses code switching and may not even know it. I believe code switching can teach you a lot about yourself.