Tuesday, October 19, 2010

You say tomahto, I say tomayto

I watched this TV show called Outsourced the other night. It's about a call center set in Mumbai and it was amusing, but I have a peeve. The Indians in the show are British Indian actors playing regular Indians and their confused accent drove me nuts. Don't get me wrong, I love British accents and I respect Indian accents. But in the show, the British actors were trying hard to sound Indian and some of them just ended up sounding bizarre. I think the reason it bothers me is because I'm worried that I sound that way too.

I grew up in Mumbai, India, surrounded by friends who were natives of many different states, and who spoke as many different languages at home. While we conversed with each other in English, our accents and pronunciations tended to rub off on each other. My Indian accent has flavors of Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, to name a few.

Then I moved to the US. Not only do I work with a diverse cultural set of people but I'm now part of that most amazing melting pot of all, B-School. I have friends and colleagues who are American, Asian, Serbian, French, Israeli, German, Chinese, British, Ukrainian, Russian. The process of conversation involves understanding and making oneself understood. In aiming for the latter, I end up subconsciously changing the way I pronounce certain words. For instance, my 't's sound like 'd's or go silent when I'm talking to Americans. I roll my Rs when I'm talking to the Europeans or Mexicans. The letter 'a' which usually had an "ah" sound in India is now selectively "ae" or "ah" depending on who I'm talking to (think "dahnce" vs "dance"). I try hard to remember to say "victory" instead of "wictory" and "Vegas" instead of "Wegas". (Most Indians have trouble distinguishing 'v' and 'w' sounds. True story.) And sometimes, I just mix it all up and end up sounding confused.

I love the English language despite all its strangeness, and I'd like to sound comfortable speaking it at all times. Maybe I'm being anal, maybe it's a real problem. But until I learn to live with it, or fix it, watching Outsourced is going to be a tad annoying. Luckily, school makes sure I don't have enough time to actually follow any TV show regularly!

5 comments:

  1. Yeah, I was about to ask you about how you find time to watch Outsourced, Femba ben.
    LOL.

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  2. you are a snob...but I love you for it :)

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  3. Oooh...the 'V' and 'W' thing was news to me when I got to Aus...one of my friends noticed that I was using the 'v' sound for the 'w' and since then I became verrry self-conscious! :P They weren't teasing but just wondering out loud why I did it...

    I've picked up the Aussie accent as well...when I now meet people for the first time, they assume I was born here! Come a long way from the 'v' and 'w' :P

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  4. haha...ya I was wondering about the authenticity of the characteristics portrayed in Outsourced, but it is a funny show. I found myself talking Germanglish when I'm talking to our German colleagues. As to keeping up with TV show, Hulu is the way to go!

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