I have a friend that she says don’t talk with accent at all. Even at home. She is so sensitive on accent and she says uneducated, villager, old and poor people talk with accent. I don’t agree with her. And we had some serious argue about accent. When I was talking with her I was embarrassed, uncomfortable, cautious and a little worry to talk without accent. It causes we lose our friendship and I decided to far away her. We didn’t talk with long time.
In my opinion accents are beautiful and it makes languages more strong. It is a mental ability to talk with different accent. Isn’t it?
One day I asked about shame and accent with my English teacher. He said something interesting. He said Iranian scientists and philosophers wrote their books in Arabic language in the old time. Arabic was academic language in the past. That is true. E.g. Avicenna books are in Arabic. But 90 percent of population were uneducated and farmer. They didn’t go to school they can’t read Arabic book and they live in their town for whole lifetime with limited connection with other towns. So people talked in their local Persian accent so what was the result? A great result. The Persian language survived. And now we talk Persian. My teacher said if the Iranians didn’t talk with different Farsi accent and they talked with academic language I mean Arabic, the Farsi was extinct. And he said some Arabic countries aren’t originally Arabs. They accepted that language.
When he said that story I honor to talk with accent in spite of all hidden laugh. I really love Farsi accents like isfahani and yazdi. They are so beautiful in pronunciation. And I like people who don’t try to hidden their origin in the back of a false accent.
My questions are
Are you embarrassed because of your accent? Do you have to hidden your accent?
Do you laugh to people who talk with accent?
And I have a question from native English speaker
What is you feeling when others talk English with a different accent? Do you laugh?
Thanks for your patient and comments. Your opinion is really important for me.
Such a good question!
I love my accent, because I consider it an important part of my identity just as the area I grew up in is an important part of my identity. I live in a city with a very different accent and I do worry that I will start to lose my accent and gain some typical features of the area around here. I love the dialect and accent here, but from an observational standpoint. Perhaps if the accent here was RP-like and considered prestigious I'd feel differently, but it's hard to imagine because I don't love that accent, only find it interesting, like, "Ahhh, that's cool, where did your r go?"*
Part of what I like as well is the untraceability of my accent (because I come from a little place, and not many people have it). People will always guess, invited to or not, and only one has ever even guessed 'Scotland', let alone the right bit. Many people guess the USA, Canada or Ireland. They might consider Scotland and discount it, because they think Scottish people all sound like Braveheart or Trainspotting characters (some people do, of course).
I don't think anyone has ever laughed at my accent, and I'd be hurt if they did. I think it's incredibly cruel, and I wouldn't ever do it to someone else. I might giggle at one of the typical mistakes that people make that accidentally create swear words from innocent ones [beach, piece, pitch, sheet and can't].
*RP is pretty much standard English English, what gets taught abroad as British English, and they (like most English accents) don't pronounce r in front of a consonant or if it's at the end of an isolated word/end of sentence. So if I listen carefully, the way most English people say 'car' sounds to me like 'caah'. In Scotland, like Ireland and the USA, we mostly pronounce rs, no matter where they are. If I don't listen carefully, I won't notice it, because my ears will "translate" it into my own dialect!
Let me talk only about my state, Odisha where people not only speak Odia but other small languages and dialects with variety of accents. The people of the region I belong don't speak Odia but a different language or better should I say a dialect called Sambalpuri. If I speak in my regional accent to a standard-Odia speaking person, first of all they may not understand and there might be some people who may give a strange look:) Anyway, if I want to speak to my friends who speak Odia, I speak them in Odia(without my regional accent) and whenever I am home, I switch back to my regional accent.
I don't get embarrassed of my accent be it my regional or English or another. It's all right sometimes people laugh at my accent and so do I at theirs but that's only because some accents sounds funny and I love the way they sound.:)
Listening to other English accents. Some surveys have been done within England as to which accents most people trust the most. It turns out that Newcastle is preffered over Birmingham. Generally I like them as long as I can understand them and, from experience, I've got used to many. Some years ago I listend to a person from the countryside in Jamaica and I realised it was almost exactly the same as that from Devon.
Do we laugh at them? I might smile if that accent is especially like a famous comic actor. So there are some Portugeuse accents that I smile at. I recently listened to someone explaining that southern USA accents are like banjos playing and they do and now I smile.
Laugh, no laughing would be wrong.
I'm from the north of Iran and I'm not embarrassed for my accent. We speak gilaki with each other in my family and other place in the north. But today's I'm living in Tehran and I have to hiden my accent because of other opinion? Do you know what i mean?
Yes I do not like my accent at all and have tried to reduce it over time. I come from the southern USA which is known for a less educated accent I think. I hope that it does not sound like that when I speak other languages but I don't know!
I appreciate it when foreigners speak English though admittedly some accents do make it more difficult for me to understand than others.
