Multicultural Accents

Canada, land of multiculturalism, where everyone is welcomed.

Visually, you can see that: everyone looks like they’ve come from a different country and no one ever seems to think twice about it.

Why, then, are these completely different people all expected to speak English with a Canadian accent?

It’s not just if people don’t speak English as their first language — I’ll get to that later — but if they don’t speak with a specifically Canadian accent, they get looked at funny. It throws people off to hear me pronounce “water”; it throws me off to get the same reaction for over a year.

“I’d like a bottle of water, please.”
“Sorry?”
“Water.”
“What?”
“…Wodder.”
“Oh, water!”

If ever you hear me in person and want to know, my “British” accent is not put on but the Canadian one is. It just makes life easier and less embarrassing and time-consuming to say things like everyone else.

Part of me rages, though, at why people won’t accommodate me at least a little bit: I’m already using Canadian vocabulary, so can we please try a little harder if I pronounce things differently? It’s not like people can’t do it: those same Canadians who commented wildly on my pronunciation while in Canada didn’t have a problem when visiting the U.K. Sure, they weren’t used to the accents there, but they got by.

I think the difference is simply that people had different expectations: they expected British people to speak with British accents and were more ready to accommodate trying to understand that. Water? Not a problem.

Why, then, can we not extend that expectation to so-called multicultural Canada?

I always feel sorry for people who don’t speak English as their first language — not because I have this weird idea that English is the only language worth learning, but because sometimes other people give off that vibe.

Speaking accented Cantonese myself, I’ve been on the other side of the language barrier (like anyone who’s ever really learned another language), and I really hate it there. It’s so very frustrating to not know what or how to something, and I’m always so very grateful when someone really slows down and tries to understand me. After the initial shock that comes with meeting someone who speaks differently, I’ve been told that actually, it’s not that hard to understand me. I’m pretty sure these people weren’t just being nice, either, ’cause they’re the ones who’ve stuck around and still listen without many problems most of the time. The ones who don’t want to listen? They give me condescending looks and walk out of my life. Not my loss, but it still bugs me: just because I may not be able to speak Cantonese like a Hong Kong local doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of speaking anything. My English, if you only knew, is more than fine.

So I challenge you: the next time you’re about to mock someone’s accent — and you know if you’re doing it out of friendliness or not — or complain about how impossible it is to listen to that prof, ask yourself if you really tried to understand. Instead of realizing in the first class the possible language barrier and switching off all effort to understand for the rest of the term, try listening for their particular idiosyncracies and patterns of speech, rather than what they’re “supposed” to say. Of course it takes more time and effort, but that’s what communication is about: someone speaks and someone listens, not condemns for being different. If they’re making the effort to speak, it’s only fair to make the effort to listen. And you will probably find, as I have, that if you keep at it a while, it’s really not as difficult as you think.

Let’s take multiculturalism to the auditory level. After all: of the hundreds of thousands of different languages, dialects and accents out there, why is it that you criticize someone for not having the one you happen to speak?