On Accents & Festivities

I've been thinking a lot about accents recently.

It's perhaps that every day living in another country means confronting the inadequacies of my own. Or because I've found myself discussing them a lot in the company of friends recently - them asking my opinion on it broadly and occasionally theirs specifically.

I think our inclination is to dislike accents, or at the very least having them. Most people I know who have a desire to speak another language want to sound authentic, as do I myself. They obviously highlight differences, maybe serve to underscore a groupings that either one is, or is not part of.

But is that bad?

Because accents, on my reflection, are fantastic. At minimum, they are the mark of achievement - of going to the substantial effort of speaking another language. They are mark of a path, certain sometimes large choices. If you live in another country they are a tangible reminder of how far you've come; the choices that you've made and the things you've seen through. They are proxies for challenges overcome.

And that's where it remained for a few days, until now in the midst of a post festive reflection that another parallel emerged.

At Christmas for a huge number of us our thoughts exist squarely with and around family and many of us return to a version of home on a basis that ranges from choice, to tradition and for still others duty.

But we make that trek, submitting to various fares and committing time to crossing regional borders or state lines. The why of it I can only think is heritage.

Maybe accents are like that too. No matter where we arrive they're a little living piece of our past selves, a little glimpse of underlying makings.

In my case it's the average-Brit-bonanza that exists internalised by the chords in my throat. But no matter whether at some point it changes, whether I shave off its rasp in the face of forked paths it'll always be there: the fact of it having existed will remain.

It's right there, it's an oratorical history. Even if the audible fades the little quirks of me it's shaped probably unseen by superficial eyes will dwell. And in the same way as we venture homebound to honour our past beginnings that I think we can abide by the subtleties of the past and our selves that our accents represent.