Off the beaten track: Role of accents in language

As an Indian who was born and brought up in a bilingual parentage and lives in a region in which people speak a language that is different from what we speak in my home, I have had the pleasure of experiencing the nuances of nearly eight Indian languages and a bit of French and German, besides English.

In my boyhood, I studied in government schools where the medium of instruction was not English. However, as English was also used as a lingua franca in our home, I could find English to be an easy language. I retain my interest in English language and literature to this day.

It is amazing as to how idiomatic English of my boyhood years ("Hope this letter of mine finds you in the best of health and cheers") has gradually changed to email English of today ("hi").

Although linguistic metamorphosis is inevitable, I find that the role played by accents hasn’t changed much over the years. As communications technology continues to grow taking the customer base along with it, somewhat like the pied piper of Hamelin, every one of us is affected due to it, in one way or the other.

In fact, how we communicate with others becomes a very pronounced issue, as we move from country to country in search of a job or just for sightseeing. What role does accent play in language communication? This article presents my snapshot view on accents.

Nearly three years back, I left for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to work with the country's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, for a year.

When I reached Phnom Penh on 18 September 2008, after a tiresome flight from Chennai via Bangkok, it was great to experience the cordiality and friendliness of the Khmer people. Soon after reaching the airport, I could sense my difficulty in understanding their English with Cambodian accent. I felt very embarrassing to ask my Cambodian colleagues to repeat what they said. However, within a few weeks, I got used to their accent. When I recollect my auditory experience, I think that their `toomarrow' sounded sweeter than `tomorrow'.

Once when I was in a restaurant in Kolkota (known as Calcutta then), I ordered for `curd' (the Indian equivalent of plain yoghurt). But the waiter couldn't understand what I needed, until I enacted a role-play to show how a bowl of milk was churned and so on. Good heavens, he got the idea and brought a delicious cup of `chord'.

When I was working in the editorial department of a textbook publishing company, my colleague used to ask me to `simbly’ estimate the right amount of `royal tea' for authors. As someone who never knew of offering tea as a compensation for good writing, I found his idea to be utterly hilarious. It took a few weeks for me to realise that the term used by that colleague from Kerala actually meant `royalty'. His `simbly’ stood for `simply’.

When I was teaching in Southern Africa, I needed to take my `lunch' (pronounced as in `push') (thanks to my neighbour form Yorkshire), needed to take care of myself from heavy `rhine' (to mean `rain'), (thanks to my friend from Australia) or I needed to take my car to `ze' petrol station when the petrol was in reserve, as advised by another friend from `Ze Neederland'.

I think that the accent aspect of any language should also be taught when we teach languages to kids. I think that different accents add colour to any language, and English is no exception.

Now, let me watch that 1964 musical `My fair lady' yet another time, and enjoy its aroma of accents. See you next `thime'. `Thaenk' you.

Accent is the soul of a language: it gives the feeling and truth to it (the language) - Jean Jacques Rousseau in `Èmile'.

Lesson concepts: Issue of authenticity

As my job involves quality assurance, I make it a point to verify the authenticity of reference sources, which content developers use when developing lesson modules.

Oddly enough, it is not uncommon to come across factual and conceptual mistakes in K-12 textbooks. Hence, editors and other professionals involved in quality assurance search for authentic reference materials.  

A few weeks back, as part of my work in this direction, I came across a beautiful depiction of Earth's magnetic field in a New Zealand based web source. The picture was colourful but contained an obvious blunder. Earth's magnetic  poles are labelled wrongly. Intead of showing the Earth's South magnetic pole being near the Geographic North pole and vice versa, the illustration shows the poles the other way round.  As the mistake was uncorrected, when I revisited the webpage on last Sunday, I wrote to them using an option given on the same webpage, requesting them to correct the mistake by explaining as to why the depiction was wrong. I havn't yet received a reply.    

I am sure that you will agree with my point of view that any appropriate learning material presented to students should be authentic, whatever be the source. 

Off the beaten track: My farewell to Short Wave Listening and DXing

In my post on 1 January, I had mentioned as to how delighted I was in getting back to my hobbies of SWL and DXing using my short wave receiver after many years.  But now I realise that these two hobbies are no more fascinating due to more effective modes of broadcasting during the past few decades. 

I remember with nostalgia as to how useful was my simple SW/MW receiver when I was working in Endaselassie (a remote village) and later near the capital city Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in 1982-83.  In fact, I used to enjoy listening to early morning devotional songs broadcast from radio staions in cities such as Madras (now known as Chennai) in India, my home country, on short wave.

Later, when I  was placed in Southern Africa, I continued listening to shortwave broadcasts including those from Madras. Occassionally I used to receive signals beamed to South East Asia though my location would be diametrically opposite viz. in Southern Africa, as documented in the following excerpt from the UK based `Short Wave Magazine', to which I used to contribute regularly:


But today, by using our AM//SW receivers, it is only possible to receive signals from a local radio station on the medium wave and not beyond.

At the audience interection level, a few decades back, even as recently as the early '90s, SW broadcasters used to respond to listners' letters and reception reports promptly.  I remember with nostalgia as to how BBC World Service (Radio) continued mailing 'London Calling', their monthly programme guide, even after they closed down their World Service Listener Panel (of which I was a member) in mid '80s, as part of cutting costs and how my letter was the first one published when a listener mailbag programme was introduced in London Calling in late '80s.

Radio Deutsche Welle used to be glad when I sent my reception reports on their frequencies.

[Since I restarted DXing, I communicated to broadcasters such as Radio Nederlands Worldwide (which was previously Radio Nederlands) by using options in their own websites. But still, I havn't received any response].

Besides, we hear cost cutting measures such as reduction in airtime,  reduction in number of programmes and reduction in number of language services, which seem to be a clear indication of user shift from short wave audio to technologically more advanced digital audiovisual programmes.

Hence I have decided to discontinue SWL and DXing for ever, and get back to satellite TV and podcasts, so that I wouldn't be the odd man out.

Off the beaten track: Musical rendezvous

Yesterday, after a long time, I had time to visit youtube and watch recordings of my favourite soft rock singers.  

It was nice to watch The Beatles singing "Michelle", the lyrics of which came to my help when I was learning French at the Alliance Francais, Gaborone.

I think that songs by singers such as Mark Knopfler are a musical treat at times. When it comes to music, I remember my good friend and colleague Ulrich Klaussen. He was an accomplished violinist. He and I used to share Physics teaching workload at the school in which we taught.