Accents Do and Don't Matter

Thirty or so kids, all from different neighborhoods which make up the small city of East Providence, claimed seats in a tiny classroom, on the first day of 2nd grade. As a way to introduce ourselves to the class, our task was to write a short paragraph about who we were (the question of identity, in the eyes of a second grader, offers a pretty open ended answer). I began my introduction, Hi, I’m Ella Donesky and I was born in Toronto, Canada. My favorite colour is green. The next day, my paper was returned with a red “x” over the “u” in “colour.”

My dad is Canadian and he speaks Canadian English. Though I was also born in Canada, the majority of my life was spent in in the United States, first in East Providence, Rhode Island and then in Seattle, Washington. Rhode Island, the smallest state, is divided down the middle by the Narragansett Bay and the Pawtucket River. The result is the east side of Rhode Island seems to have been influenced by Massachusetts and Boston, and west side of Rhode Island more by Connecticut. Growing up on the eastern side, my friends, neighbors and classmates spoke with accents similar to the Bostonian accent. I, however, spoke like my parents and their friends (further, I only ever spoke Bulgarian with my mother unless there were other people around). My dad taught at Brown University and my mom taught at RISD, with are both across the river from where we lived. The English I learned was the Canadian English my dad spoke with me. He also taught me how to read before I started Kindergarten in the USA, and I went to daycare in Toronto before moving to Providence. Nearly all of the books we owned were Canadian books with Canadian spelling. In addition to acquiring my dad’s accent and writing, a few of his “Canadianisms” slipped into my vocabulary.

“Pass the clicker,” I would say to my friend, sitting beside me on the couch.

“Oh, you mean the remote?”

Sometimes, they wouldn’t understand what I was trying to communicate.

“Grab a few serviettes and we’ll clean up this mess.”

“A serviette?” They would ask.

“Sorry, napkin.”

I didn’t know if I should call someone’s aunt “ant” or “ont”.

The confusion that would follow my use of the jargon was an indicator that these words were not ones they typically heard in their home or neighborhood. Not only that, but it made more clear that there were differences in the way I spoke and the way my peers spoke. In spite of the differences, it never occurred to me to try and change the way I speak. After all, I didn’t think I was speaking incorrectly, I was speaking the language my parents taught me, and the language I spoke with them at home. It felt entirely natural and I was fine with the differences with others.

This may clarify why in my six years living in Rhode Island, I didn’t adopt the Rhode Island dialect. A friend of mine grew up in a household where both her parents spoke with British accents and her accent sounds identical to her parents’. Yet, she lives in Newton, Massachusetts. The one word I picked up in Rhode Island and continue to use, is “bubbler,” or what you would more commonly refer to as a drinking fountain. I rarely use Canadian English, now, and it’s very easy to switch between the two, but during my early formative years, this was the only English I knew (I also spoke fluent Bulgarian exclusively with my mother). Throughout elementary school, it was confusing to me when words that were very naturally a part of my vocabulary and to which I didn’t give a second thought, were considered incorrect. To my peers, these words were foreign. The differences in the language I used when compared to the language my classmates used was only made more noticeable. My teachers began to understand that I wasn’t making spelling errors or using an incorrect form of English, I was writing and speaking in a more “Britishized” version of the English language, which is in use in Canada, the form of English I was most used to and in which I was first taught.

In East Providence, there are two predominant speaking groups, recent immigrants, and those whose family have lived in East Providence for generations. Among my peers, my perceived accent acted as a sort of third type. Accents often suggest socio-economic status, level of education and whether you are an immigrant or not. All of these may have been an issue for me. However, at the time, I wasn’t so aware of the politics. Among my friends parents were professors, doctors, and lawyers as well as janitors and factory workers, etc. My awareness was just that of difference, but not of judgmental difference. Difference was fairly neutral at the time. I only became of aware of the differences when my friends would come over to my house and say “Your dad sounds funny,” or “Your mom talks weird.” My friends pointed out their accents, but I didn’t hear it.

My move to Seattle was a culture shock, or lack thereof. Accents didn’t come up much. Seattle is not known for having a strong local, regional accent. It’s an American town, but it’s very close to the neutral seeming accent that is largely northwest and not so different from the way Canadians speak. So my dad and I didn’t stand out. But my mom did. I’d gone from living in an environment where diversity was the norm to living in a mostly white city with very little diversity. Unlike regions in the UK, for example, which carry distinct regional accents from areas that are not to far apart and are often indicators of status, these factors were hardly identifiable in my classmates. My friends would tell me “Your dad sounds like a professor,” and he was a professor. My mom was also a professor, but no one said the same about her. I believe it was because she had a Bulgarian accent. Furthermore, my grandmother speaks five languages, including english, but when she was in America, my friends only heard a old lady who spoke English with an accent, and they may have made negative assumptions. Most Americans can’t tell if British people are smart or stupid, as the joke goes, because British accents have long been associated with education and being upper class. Accents are tricky and you have to be very careful about how completely you rely on them to create your perception of someone. In James Baldwin’s “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” he discusses language and what it reveals about the speaker “It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identify.” The identity of myself, my father, my mother and my grandmother all became filtered through these issues and changed according to context.

Two years ago, my family moved to Philadelphia. Known for it’s distinct accent, Philadelphia offered a slightly more diverse environment for me than Seattle. Though it was still primarily black and white, the ethnicities were more evenly dispersed. Science Leadership Academy is not a white suburban school, unlike my middle school. It seemed that I wasn’t perceived as speaking that differently, however, until it became known that I was Canadian. What people know about Canada gave them their impressions of me, and the stereotypes simply didn’t hold.

“Say ‘aboot’.”

“About.”

“No, no, no. You’re Canadian, say ‘aboot’.”

“About.”

“M’kay, say ‘eh’,”

“Say ‘water’,”

“Wooder.”

I remember driving across the country from Providence to Seattle in a big “Penske” truck, nudged between my mom, dad and dog, entertaining myself and them with all of the accents I could conjure. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that this could be offensive to anyone, because I didn’t experience it that way. It was simply a response to my growing up in multicultural environments. Today, I’d be more careful in order to avoid seeming disrespectful.