On language

     It will come as no surprise to any readers of this blog that people in New Zealand speak differently that people in America.  There are two primary parts to this difference: the accent, and the vocabulary. 

               The accent

               Overall, the New Zealand accent hasn’t been very difficult for either Liam or me to understand.  It’s not so different that our American accents, and it helps that Liam’s Oupa – Allyson’s dad – speaks with a South African accent, which is rather similar to the New Zealand one.  Liam has therefore had a lot of practice listening to other accents, and usually follows what’s going on.

              There is an exception to this, however – I often find it difficult to understand the Kiwi (New Zealand) accent when I’m in a loud and crowded place.  Of course, even at home it can be hard to understand people in a setting like this.  Usually we hear only some subset of the sounds the person speaks, and we have to reconstruct the accent from these.  I imagine my mind using some sort of phoneme-based error-correcting code to do this, and it usually does it well.  Here, however, the phonemes are all off.  Converting from partially-heard New Zealand speech to something I can understand has occasionally been beyond me.

               The vocabulary

               The differences in vocabulary, of course, bring a new type of fun to our time here!  Liam knew in advance that some words were different (“petrol” instead of “gas”, say).  We started finding more, though, even on the airplane.  After using the airplane bathroom, Liam stepped out and asked me where the soap was.  The flight attendant, who was standing right next to us, told him “it’s right next to the basin!”, after which Liam just stared blankly at her.  =)

               Happily, Liam seems to revel in these new words.  When we went out to eat, I told him that in New Zealand, “chips” means “french fries”.   A few seconds later he looked at me at said “the chips in New Zealand are really good!”.  He enjoys using his new words.  I suspect for this reason he’ll be good at learning new languages in the future, too.

               How then, to speak?

               So the vocabulary and accent are different here than what I’m used to. For me, the biggest question has become: which of these (if either) should I affect myself?

               Should I use NZ words when speaking to someone in NZ?  I think so.  It doesn’t even feel very strange.  I always adjust my vocabulary based on whom I’m speaking to.  I use different words with Liam, Emery, and Allyson.  I use different vocabulary with my honors math students than I do with my pre-calculus students.  I even use a different style of speaking with my mother than with my father.  Most of us do this, I think, and it makes sense.  A shared history with someone implies a shared lexicographic pool from which to draw, and it would be silly not to use this.  So I have started saying “boot” instead of “trunk”, “rather” instead “pretty” (as an adverb, etc.)

               What about the accent, then?  Should I say “class”, or “clahss?”  (forgive me for trying to sound these out without a good phonetic alphabet – I suspect you get the idea).  If I say “clahss”, people might think I’m mocking them, or pretending to be something I’m not.  On the other hand, this is how the word is pronounced here.  If I am in France, I try to say things the way the French do.  I fail at this (my French is terrible), but I try.  Oughtn’t I try here?

               I’ve started using the accent in bits, together with my attempt to use local vocabulary and grammatical patterns.  This all seemed quite fine to me until last night when talking with our neighbor.  He knew that I was from the U.S., but then asked me how long I’d been there.  Uncertain how to answer the question (does he want to know how old I am?), I said “err… forever.”  “Oh,” he responded, “with your accent I thought you grew up somewhere else.”

               This made me feel a bit like a fraud.  I have no desire to pretend to be from New Zealand, but it still seems simply polite to try my best to be easy to understand.  What should I do?

               If any readers have thoughts on this, I’d be happy to hear them!