Many Africans who speak English have different kinds of accents influenced by where they grew up and the other languages they speak. An accent is described as a mode of utterance peculiar to an individual, locality or nation. This dictionary definition makes it sound like your accent is a part of your identity and is something you should be proud of but I have met many Africans who are not proud of their accents.
In Botswana the closer your accent is to that of native English speakers like the British or the Americans the more people envy you. If you have what I call a “raw Botswana accent” people tend to look down upon you. This is partly due to that most of the people with the raw Botswana accent come from public schools while those with the near perfect English or American accents come from rich private schools where some of their teachers are English or American. Thus in most cases your accent gives away your social status. Many people try so hard to perfect their accents in order to give the illusion that they went to rich schools or good public schools in the city. Most radio stations in Botswana nowadays seem to be hiring people who have accents that come close to those of native English speakers. The question this raises is does having a near perfect accent mean you have mastered the language better than someone who speaks it with their natural accent? I have met a few Caucasian people who spoke my language with my accent and I was impressed so I wondered if this meant that I had to master the American accent in order to impress the Americans with my English.
The accent issue gets complicated when an African moves to a place with native English speakers like America. The first thing a person in America notes when they talk to you is your accent. Many of them politely say they love your accent leaving you to wonder if they really meant it or it is their way of telling you that you are odd. You pray so hard that during your stay in America you will absorb some of the American accent if you are ashamed of your own and you celebrate when someone notices an ‘improvement’ in your accent. If you do master the accent you feel a sense of acceptance by the Americans because we all want to feel accepted but guess what? Many of your friends back home in Africa are waiting to hear your accent as soon as you get back and if it is too perfect they will accuse you of being less of an African even though they too would like to have an accent like yours. Talk about complicated!
A possible solution is for us to realize that there are many English accents and there is no one right English accent so we should take pride in our accents.
3 comments:
Ditha, I love your post. I will respond soon..I am in Jo'burg and it is great, the accents of home are so comforting!
Ok, I just found a computer. You make a good point that a lot of Africans are not proud of how they sound and prefer sounding Western, whatever that is. It is a problem, and not one exclusive to the African continent. It is a cancer eating away at the psyche-integrity of all people previously colonized by the West or made to look up to the Western way of speaking through the media and other forms of imperialism.
Botswana radio stations break my heart when it comes to accents, same with Btv. I have worked on radio in Botswana and on tv and I know how accents are more important than talent there.
Ditha, I feel like you do not have to sound American to impress Americans with your English. Setswana is a language spoken by less than 4 million people, English is spoken throughout the world. So, English speakers have to deal with the fact that having that many people speak your language comes at a price a.k.a. people will speak it with their accents and you might just have to live with that.
My accent when speaking English has become more American because I live in America, but they would have to slaughter me before I speak my own language, Setswana in accent.
I love this post. I agree with most of it, except the classification of Americans as "native English speakers." In my opinion, Americans speak a rather unfortunate American dialect. I come from a country that was colonized by the British, and I find that many educated Africans speak far more eloquently and spell a lot better than Americans do. Maybe my mind is still colonized...
On the issue of accents, however, I understand and even agree with where you are coming from. On the African side, I think it comes from a cultural inferiority complex. On the American side, however, I think it's the result of America as a country being very conscious of difference. For such a huge and diverse country with such a history, I find it amazing how much people focus on how other people are different. The Boston accent is made fun of all the time, and none of the southerners I know ever use their southern accents here in the north east. Everyone is trying to be something...but I don't think we're entirely sure what that something is.
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