Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

“So, how do you speak English?”
By Aaysha Cader
An accent - we have always had a problem with it. For those who don’t have one of those supposedly ‘hip and happening’ British/American/Aussie accent mixes, the problem is to ‘acquire’ one as soon as possible. For those who have it naturally, it’s a problem to do away with it and ‘fit in’ to Lankan society. As for those of us who have to listen to some wannabes ‘put on’ their fake accents, forget to keep them going, and tune into a different one, well, the problem is… it’s annoying!

The Oxford dictionary defines an ‘accent’ as ‘the way of pronouncing the words of a language that shows which country or area the person is coming from’. Fair enough. You happen to live in America, you acquire their way of speaking, Sri Lankan though you may be. And strictly speaking, it shouldn’t be anybody’s problem, if that’s the way you speak. But then again, with the influx of ‘fake’ accents springing up, anyone with an accent in Sri Lanka is looked upon as, well, a ‘wannabe’ or a ‘fake’.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having an accent, so long as it sounds good to hear,” says *Anisha, 20, adding as an afterthought, “It has got to be real, because you can always identify fake accents, and those who use it won’t be able to sustain it for long.” Very often Sri Lankans living abroad acquire the foreign way of speaking, and having got used to it, they find it difficult to shed it when they return. Then there are those who only need a couple of weeks after a transition from a local to an international school, to acquire the most incredible of accents! Add to that, there is the sudden ‘difficulty’ that arises when speaking Sinhalese.

The real and the fake
Many Sri Lankans are prejudiced towards any kind of accent that they are not accustomed to hearing. Even those with genuine foreign accents are often laughed at. But, as Ms. Wendy Holsinger, Principal of the Wendy Whatmore Academy of Speech & Drama, and a teacher of speech for nearly four decades, says, an accent is derived from the person’s ability to listen and the surrounding environment. “If you have a good ear, it’s a bonus, and it means you will pick up different modulations (the glide of the voice over a group of words) and inflections (the rise and fall of the voice on a single word) faster,” she says.

“The native way of speaking plays a role in a person’s accent,” she explains, which is why most Sri Lankans have the tendency to speak with an upward inflection in every sentence. As for acquiring foreign accents, she attributes it to the need a person subconsciously feels to make him or herself understood. “It is only natural for a child who’s been living in the US for years to speak in the way those around him speak, or else he might not be understood,” she says, adding as an illustration the fact that she speaks to her German friends in a slightly slower pace, simply to make them understand what she is saying.

Says *Kimara, 22, “Very often you find that when you speak to a foreigner who speaks with an accent, be it Indian, Arab, English or American, you subconsciously ‘acquire an accent’ and end up speaking like one of them, in an effort to make the other person understand what you are saying.” She says she makes an effort not to stick to her own way of speaking, but that more often that not it happens automatically.

*Yukthi, who was educated in the US, is often at the recieving end of jokes by friends and colleagues for having acquired a foreign accent. A few years on, the accent doesn’t sound all too ‘foreign’ to listen to, and he says, that it’s not so much a case of ‘getting rid of’ the accent, as it is one of ‘adapting’ to the surroundings. Some others have conveniently switched to the use of aiyos and aneys, with the intention of adapting to the Sri Lankan way of speaking.

Conscious of correct articulation (owing to speech training classes at a younger age), he says that there is also a tendency to revert to the American way of speaking, when he reads out reports or documents, “and I have often been told to stop it, but it can’t be helped,” he says.

Telling them off
Among our versatile Sri Lankans are those who put on an accent for the sole purpose of getting their way. “I use it to tell off nuisance callers,” says *Nalin, “the moment they hear a foreign accent, even if it’s totally fake, most nuisance callers back off.”

It’s a well-established Sri Lankan weakness, where a foreign accent is supposed to represent some sort of misplaced ‘respect’ for anyone who practices it. It has also got something to do with being ‘in’ and ‘happening’ so to speak, and this explains why some confused teens go to such lengths to speak with that incredible mix of accents. “I deliberately use a fake accent when I don’t want to understand what someone on the road is saying,” laughs *Natalie, 19, adding that it helps to master an accent for such purposes.

Presenting their case
Putting on fake accents especially on TV and radio, has always been a controversial topic in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans have, and always have had, a phobia against presenters with an accent, be it fake or natural. Some years ago it was a young lady doing news on a private TV channel. Born and bred in England, she had acquired an accent as a result of her education and surroundings in the UK and naturally used it when presenting news. The ‘accent’ created a huge uproar; with some saying they couldn’t understand what she was saying, while others probably not wanting to hear it, attributing it to the fact that it was annoying to listen to.

Most radio stations today, however, make it a point to see that their news presenters as well as DJs pronounce local names and places correctly. “We have no problem with a Radio Personality (RP) having an accent, so long as he or she represents the listening population and is understood by them” says Ryan of E! FM, adding that all their RPs should be pleasant to listen to, and that it’s important they don’t sound annoying.

Dinah from TNL radio echoes the sentiment. “If it’s a genuine accent, we have no issues,” she says, adding, “we can’t change the way people speak, but we discourage any form of put-on accent.” She went on to say that fake accents become very apparent, and the RP himself will find it difficult to maintain after a while. “In any case people don’t rate the popularity of the RP by his accent, rather by what he says, and how well he connects,” she adds.

Says another RP from a popular Lankan radio station, “I don’t see the issue with accents,” adding, “when you’re on radio, you automatically enhance your voice even a little bit, and it means you enhance your accent.” He explains that it happens subconsciously, in order to both sound better, as well as connect better with the listener. “It comes naturally to everyone,” he adds, “and if you have to try very hard to do it, then you probably don’t have the knack for radio.”

What matters most
There are so many accents in the English language, and such a variety of dialects, explains Ms. Holsinger, “You can speak it any way you want, but must be careful not to sound annoying and fake.” Adding that accents have been an issue from time immemorial, she reveals that before 1956, even British actors had to change their accents and adapt to a certain accent in order to be on stage. The situation changed for the better with John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, with one of its characters being a boy with a different dialect; from then on, the problem of sticking to a single accent was done away with.

“The key to good speech,” explains Ms. Holsinger, “is not to ‘put on’ an accent, but to be natural, speak with correct vowel and consonant sounds, and good articulation, so that people will clearly understand what you say.” And, at the end of the day, that’s exactly what matters.
* Names have been changed.

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