My English is Better than Yours?

“G’day Mate,”

“Howdy, partner! Ya’ll from round these parts? ”

“Haha Ayo Key, pass me thee chips!”

“Ard. Yo I don’t understand why they be talking so weird and they accents oh my gosh!”

“Right they always talking bout us and the way we break things down, and how we speak but the way they speak is all wrong can’t nobody understand what the hell they be saying they need to correct that Shit!”

“Nah Sha, I mean I wouldn’t call it wrong but its just real different from us. I mean other countries just put such strong emphasis on their words or at least too much, I mean I don’t know but that doesn’t mean the way they pronounce it is wrong haha.”

That was the day I actually began to think about languages, accents and the way certain people speak all over the world. When coming across new and different people who pronounce words different from the way we’re accustomed to people always begin to pin point and judge. They may call it “weird” or “wrong”, but the real question is “is the way we speak right or wrong?”

“F’ that Key, yo look dey just speak like outta with too much sound and emphasis or they sound to uptight like something stuck up there nose.”

“Okay’ so if people who speak with different accents seem wrong or uptight what do we sound like.”

“Regular!”

“That makes no sense. What if we’re actually the ones speaking and pronouncing things incorrectly?”

“We’re not.”

“How do you know that, you didn’t create all words and its pronunciations did you.”

“Naw but…”

“Ard den haha. I mean I’m not gonna lie doe the way they speak, it doesn’t sound regular to me but bet we sound just as bad to their ears.”

“Weird, wrong, incorrect, uncommon!” We use those words not only based off of the way that other speak and the accents they’re accustomed to, but base what’s right from wrong in our minds off of the way it has been "taught" to us. Language is only what people make it to be know one can say a language is right or wrong basing the fact that no one is one hundred percent sure if the way their pronouncing their words is the “right way” to say them.

“Key lemme ask you this, do you think you speak normal?”

“Hell yeah! Haha you can ask anyone that and they’ll tell you they believe they speak normal. Do you think you speak normal?”

“Sho do! Haha lemme stop, I can speak normally, you know full sentences and etc but this is they way I chose to speak. That don’t make the way I speak wrong and people shouldn’t judge me off of it.”

“Okay so that doesn’t make the way they speak incorrect either. You speak the way you speak because not only is that the way that you’ve been taught but since it feels normal to you, you’re not going to change it. That’s probably the same way someone else that you’re judging feels.”

“Shut up Key! Haha you think you smart”

“Ayee’ I’m jus sayin.”

 “English Accents” you hear them all over the world from North America to Australia, South America to England and etc. Is one better than the other? The area we live in, our surroundings, and the different types of cultures we are accustomed to defines the way we speak. Having accents are just ways to take the English language and expand it to different and unique ways of speaking. “In Black English isn’t a language, then tell me what is,” by James Baldwlin he say “language, incontestably, reveals the speaker”.  Language is a big part of acknowledging someone’s identity. Everyone has a accent whether its very noticeable or very hard to hear, its one of out of millions of ways to makes us different from one another. By telling someone that they speak is incorrect is like disgracing someone’s whole identity.

James Baldwlin’s also states in, If Black English isn’t a language, then tell me what is; “Now no one can eat his cake and have it too”.

This means that when it comes down to languages and accents you can’t judge someone else’s without judging your own. How can we call the way someone else speaks incorrect when we’re not one hundred percent sure if the way we pronounce things is correct. Is there such thing as a right or wrong accent, or is it just a state of mind. Should we go around judging people based off the way they speak, or should we be complimenting them on how it’s so different but yet so unique?  We should find the positive on what so many people call a negative, and just embrace the different and unique accents we have in our English language. No one man is better than the other, unless ones mind let it be so.