I became aware of how my accent was still a very big part of who I am when my daughter was in elementary school. She had just turned 8. Reading was never a problem because I read to her when she was in my womb and from the moment she was born. However, she had a problem enunciating ‘th’ in words. In Barbados, the country of my birth, our native tongue is British English. However, we speak a ‘bajan’ dialect, which is a mixture of broken English, Welsh, Africanisms and Scottish. The bajan dialect is influenced by the country’s long history of colonialism and the many people who were transplanted there because of the slave trade.
I never paid much attention to my accent until my daughter’s 2nd grade teacher told me of the very specific problem she was having with ‘th’. Words like ‘that’ or ‘they’ became the very bajan ‘dat’ or ‘dey’ and ‘them’ became ‘dem’. I was the one who read to her most of the time instead of her dad so she incorporated my ‘bajanisms’ into her language. This made it appear as if he had a speech impediment. However, with the help of her teacher we identified the problem and quickly resolved it. I learned to be more aware of how I enunciated my words when reading to her, how to help and to be more aware of her own language patterns. It was hard work but today reading is one of her best subjects.
Living in the USA for more than 20 years has not made my accent go away. In fact, it is stronger than ever. A recent article on Dialect Blog helped me to further understand why my accent seems here to stay. It says that even though many transplants just like me lose their accents once in their new adopted countries some do not lose theirs for various reasons. The article gives examples and shows video of transplants from different counties who kept or changed their accents. I guess I am in the ‘various reasons’ category. Now I have to work on the way I reflexively write ‘cheque’ versus
‘check’.
