Accents: how do you feel about Western accents in an Indian-looking person

rajiveanand

Take a look at my picture and then my name and guess what I have to say on this subject!

It would sound arrogant to list all the places I've lived and all the languages I speak regularly, so I'll just say this; it's obvious when someone is "putting on" an accent, and it can be rather annoying.

To all the folks who are ranting about call center "Victors" who are really named Vikram, I invite them to do as I do and just speak in Hindi! That really shakes 'em up, and sometimes they're really happy about it and drop the phony accent that is their job requirement altogether!

I remember laughing uproariously at a British production of "West Side Story" that I saw on my first trip there when I was twelve.

However, I really believe this thread is irrelevant because we live in the time of shattering stereotypes about how someone who looks a certain way ought to sound!

This thread can be answered swiftly with one sentence- We're all from Africa!

R.

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Indjun

Are you saying one should learn a new language, and make sure to do it with an accent so you don't appear insecure about your identity? Sounds absurd to me. If I learn Hindi I would try my best to make sure there is no hint of a Western accent.

capt_mahajan

English is not an American origin language.

And two, my point was about two accents. Please scroll up.

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camelgirl

Historically, at least in the USA, it was very common to change your name when you got here from places like Poland (my family) in the early part of the 20th Century. I didn't even KNOW that my father & grandparents had a very hard-to-spell and pronounce Polish surname until I was an adult. Then I thought it was hysterical because I couldn't even say it! My grandparents knew their own language but never used it with me so I never learned even one word. That generation of new Americans thought fitting in and becoming "Americanized" was the whole point of being here. They never talked about "the old country" and were endlessly proud of their American grandchildren.

Oh, and speaking of Sid Singh my father was Sid his whole life, not the name he was born with (which I actually don't know)!

Subsequent immigrants have not done that and we now have a huge mix of names, many which I cannot pronounce, though I'll keep trying!

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Dilliwala

Fitting into what? A culture imposed by other immigrants.

Hmmm, I wonder what the Comanches and Shoshones and Iroquois and Apaches have to say about all this.

Ignite

Not much i'd say, since most of them are'nt even alive anymore.

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snowcrab

Definitely, it's the American (and Canadian way) latest comers get to suck up to the ones who got there before them. (Except for the ones who really got there first, they don't count.)

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rebeccam

I don't know what his original famiy name was, but actor Kal Penn is a hunk, and speaks with an American accent. (-:

Agree with some other posts above, that picking up an accent is often unconscious. It's the case, when I visit my birthplace in NY and revert (regress?) to the accent and mannerisms--or when in England, where I used to live, and before long, am phrasing qustions differently, picking up the accent.

It is NOT deliberate, or an attempt at snobbery.

That same ability to mimic an accent has been useful in learning a foreign language. I've noticed most people are more impressed if you can speak in the accent of their language, than if you can say a lot of words. Quality vs quantity.

Coming from Oakland, California, friends visiting UK for the first time are always amazed by English accents on Brits of Black African descent.

I don't know if the OP meant to start it, but this sure had turned into an interesting thread on stereotypes and expectations.

camelgirl

Probably the same thing the original inhabitants of India think--who no doubt no longer exist or like the Indian tribals watching their land disappearing.....

People who live in glass houses, etc. etc.

Hey Gengis Khan, go home!! etc. etc.


I don't happen to feel personally responsible, particularly because my relatives were driven from their homes in Europe about 100 years ago! It's how people are still finding their way all over the planet. It's how it works.

And by the way, Native Americans were raiding and killing each other long before the first white person showed up!!! They had their own problems getting along. Of course, the early settlers took full advantage of that and used them to further kill each other.

This is by no means an attempt to excuse the wanton destruction of Native American people & culture, just that real life is much more complicated than Dilli's flip comment.


We in the West have done some seriously bad things--starting in the 15th Century with Spain "discovering" the "new world."

Name one place in the world that still has it's original peoples intact, not screwed by some newcomers.
Any anthropologists here on IM who can tell us? All I can think of are some very remote tribes still in Borneo.

Ignite

His family is from Gujarat, but he was born and brought up in America.

Ignite

What about people that truly can only speak in English with American or British accent because they have been out of their own country for so long and they are so used to hearing English with American or British accent, that they just acquire it?

dzibead

You mean immigrants like the Apaches themselves, whose name come from the Zuni and Tewa word "apachu", meaning "strangers/enemies"? And the Navajos, who are now exclusively associated with the Southwest U.S. actually migrated there in historical times. They are ethnographically related to the Apaches and in fact their English name derives from the Spanish name for the tribe: Apaches de Nabahu, which means the Apaches of the Cultivated Fields. The Keresan-speaking people of Acoma Pueblo moved to the defensive position of their famous mesa in order to escape from raiding Navajos. And the Iroquois? They migrated south in historical times to the Middle Atlantic and Upper South, and imposed themselves on Algonquian tribes living there. Comanches? Shoshones? Iroquois? Apaches? All warlike tribes that used aggression to expand their territories.

You mean most of the ones who encountered the original European settlers? Yeah, they're all dead now ...But according to the last census there are about 3 million people in the U.S. who consider themselves pure-blood Native Americans; this isn't counting mixed-race people. And most Mexicans? ... are really "Indians" (no, not that kind).

For sure. See above.

capt_mahajan

For the last time, my point was about two accents. Never said an Americanised accent (or an Indian one), was good or bad.

end of story from me

ninasimone

Like others have mentioned if it's not fake and put on, I don't seem to really notice because the person not faking it would be comfortable and natural talking that way, and so I am not sure I would feel anything strongly about it either way. However I must add....having worked in judicial system there was one very charming learned person in the court room of Indian heritage with a very educated Australian/English accent....mmm very nice. But I might have thought that anyway : )

SidVicious

The best thing, in my opinion, is a 'neutral' accent... not the kind taught to call centre kids these days...
But an accent which is clear, crisp and easily understood... it works in the corporate world, when interacting with overseas clients/vendors...

But we can't grudge an Indian-American (who's born in the US and lived there all his/her life) speaking with an american twang, can we?