October 02, 2007
Needed: Accent Training For ABD Actors and ComediansHumor
Periodically, we see stories about how folks in India involved in the global economy are taking accent classes to work on their English accents. Thomas Friedman wrote about the accent training many call-center workers undergo in The World is Flat. And today there was a typically fluffy piece in The Times of India about people who work on “regional” accent-training within India.
But it seems to me there hasn’t been enough coverage of accent problems that go the other way around. Watching Aliens in America the other night, it occurred to me that ABD actors and comedians who play immigrants in comic roles in Hollywood sometimes need their own accent training. You wouldn’t expect it, but most ABDs can’t really do a perfect Indian English accent. It’s either overdone (too musical), or inconsistent (those American ‘D’ and ‘T’ sounds creep in at telltale moments, as do those flat American ‘A’ and ‘E’ sounds) — or both. Adhir Kalyan doesn’t have many obvious flaws, though in my view something isn’t quite right with his accent (check it out at 1:45-2:00 in this clip). Kal Penn’s “Taj Mahal Badalandabad” character in Van Wilder has an accent that I find more convincing (see this clip), and it becomes funny when he says things that are particularly obscene or outrageous (as he does in that somewhat NSFW clip). And Russel Peters is quite good — accents are his particular strength. But there’s a host of lesser-known actors and stand-up comedians in parentally-financed movies like American Desi (and its various clones and imitations), who sound like they learned their Indian accents from Apu on The Simpsons, rather than real Indians.
Somehow Brit-Asian actors don’t seem to have this problem. The accents on Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42 always sound perfect to me. Why is that?
At any rate, I’m hereby calling for an accent-accentuation school for aspiring ABD actors and comedians trying to get a break in Hollywood. The staff, incidentally, will be entirely composed of Indian call center workers fired because their accents were too thick (or indeed, too regional). Classes will be held exclusively via videoconference (the instructors, of course, will all be based in India).
amardeep on October 2, 2007 01:53 PM in Humor · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
The Perfect Indian English Accent (PIEA) is a myth that exists only in the minds of Americans. People from different regions in India have different English accents. There might be a Gujarati English Accent or a Punjabi English Accent or a Tamil English Accent. ABD's cannot do PIEA. DBD's cannot do PIEA. Only Hank Azaria can do PIEA
People from different regions in India have different English accents. There might be a Gujarati English Accent or a Punjabi English Accent or a Tamil English Accent.
*nod* i remember being shocked when manish pointed out that some commercial had a guy with a bengali accent in english. nevertheless, there does tend to be a general similarity even across languages as distinct as punjabi and tamil that seems surprising. where does that come from? i know there is a good deal of evidence that indo-aryan languages swept over a dravidian substrate in northern india so the accent might be derived from that common source. or is there really a common tendency to the accents? or perhaps the indians who taught english to other indians created it amongst themselves?
I will personally pay for the training of that guy from Heroes...he is like off by a whole continent..
nice.
I second the call for Sendhil Ramamurthy to attend - well, if not him then the producers of Heroes (his accent at the beginning of the show was far more convincing than the Oxfordised version he's using these days).
It is possible the most disappointing accents come from 3rd-gen (or 4th, etc.) actors, whose own parents speak with American accents. It is also possible that directors ask the actors to "fake up" their accents, even when the actor is capable of performing an authentic accent. I asked the actors on Sita to affect hybrid accents; real Indian accents (and of course there are many kinds) can be difficult for some Americans to understand. (Some directors may have more sinsiter motives, such as thinking fake accents are more humorous.) Anyway, it may not be the actors' fault. Ideally, your accent school will emphasize both authenticity and clarity!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq7B9g09i4g&mode=related&search=
i always thought these guys were good!
On a side note ..a lot of my old friends from India developed English Accents..just after a couple of years of stay in ...America!
Just a quick clarification:
By "perfect accent," I meant, perfectly compelling. I know quite well that there's no one standard Indian English accent...
This is so true. I'm an ABD and I know my Indian English accent isn't that guh-rate. Also, the Indian English accent I hear most often is Gujurati English, so that prolly affects my idea of an accent.
While I was living in India, I subconciously picked up a slight accent. I think it was so people could understand me better.
But the head nod? I have got that down, it's in the blood yaar!
I find that when my sibs and I ape the accent we actually sound NOTHING like those in our family with accents. Most of them speak that slightly accented nearly-British desi-English whereas we channel Apu.
Oh the head nod! So difficult to get it correct! I am a big fan of the desi hand flick.
"well, if not him then the producers of Heroes (his accent at the beginning of the show was far more convincing than the Oxfordised version he's using these days)."
i think he said he was told by the producers/directors to do it more British than Indian-British (or what can pass for the "educated" Indian English accent). his accent at the beginning was far more convincing. i found that odd because masai oka, the japanese actor, does an accent that is sometimes harder to understand than the original more Indian-British accent.
"On a side note ..a lot of my old friends from India developed English Accents..just after a couple of years of stay in ...America!"
i'll have to say that one of the strangest accents is that weird mix of indian english and american accents that's not quite one or the other. it sounds jarring. for some reason the indian english, even not so refined indian english, and british english (what's considered more neutral or bbc english, not the regional ones or the slang ones) sounds better when mixed.
Once in a high school musical, they needed me to do an indian accent. i was completely incapable of doing it. italian, check. german, check. japaneese, check. chineese and desi, no.
It is possible the most disappointing accents come from 3rd-gen (or 4th, etc.) actors, whose own parents speak with American accents.
then this should be a bigger problem with the british: they have a MUCH HIGHER proportion of 3rd and 4th gen people (we barely have any 4th gen in the USA aside from the california punjabi-mexican american descendants).
Just the topic I was looking for. Can someone here educate me? I need to find the difference between the "W" sound and the "V" sound. I am a DBD. I can't tell the Wine from Vine, Vinny from Winney, Vase, Water, What, Why, Winston, Vinegar.......the list goes on.
thanks
Cliff
V sound = bottom lip curled up against top teeth. force air through
W sound = hold lips in round position (like an exegerated kiss). keep touong slightly back. push air through.
i hope your not kidding and im not making an ass of myself.
http://www.cwtv.com/shows/aliens-in-america/cast/adhir-kalyan
Wonder if Indians in South Africa speak with a British accent.
GG,
The ones I have spoken to have a mixture of British and native accents, I am not sure if someone else here has any other way of describing it.
@16:
Puli,
thanks for that...no, I am totally serious. My first grader and kindergartner often correct me when I mix up my v and w's. It is funny and we laugh our asses off :-)
Very true. I was always struck by how many different British accents Sanjeev et al would employ, especially non-Indian ones. And not all were caricatures (like the hip-hop kids or the Kapoors/Coopers on GGM). Sanjeev would do some of those skits in London or Midlands accents, just for kicks. A very talented guy.
the same conversation i used to have with my mom in the first grade.
imho desi accents done by most American actors including Kal Penn sound lazy and bordering on the Apu accent. I have lived majority of my life in India and I go back every year and I have yet to come across anyone that sounds like Penn in Van Wilder or Sendhil in Heroes.
Please don't.
I love it when the two get interchanged. Most people know what you're saying, so no worries Cliff.
And is "Cliff" a common DBD name?
I am not sure if Cliff is an internet pseudonym but the name is common amongst Indian Christians.
its like talking to "james" in the gurgao call center to pay your credit card bill.
Cho chweet! I said stuve instead of stove until my sophomore year in college when my roomate called me out on it! That was a direct result of hearing my mom say it wrong all those years.
Does anyone here have parents that say freezdge instead of fridge or freezer? My mom says it all the time and I always have to clarify with her which one she means. Of course one time I didn't clarify with her and put a whole chicken in the freezer. Needless to say, my sister who was cooking, was pissed because I ruined dinner for everyone on Christmas day.
Gandhi was on last night (perhaps on AMC or Bravo) and Ben Kingsley's accent was very nicely done.
Cliff: When Indians mean to say "vest" they say "west" and vice versa. So, when you're going to utter the cardinal direction "west" just think of the sleeveless over-garment that is a "vest" and say that instead!
Also, V as in "vadai" (Tamil) or "veer" (Hindi) and W as in "wodhai" (Tamil) or "wo ladka" (Hindi).
italian, check. german, check. japaneese, check. chineese and desi, no.
Can you do a Czech accent??
Not really an American born desi, but Ben Kingsley did a good job in Gandhi.
I should have a clue about this.
My niece has a school friend whose parents are from Kerala. He has the most common Scandinavian name of "Johanssen".
i used to say veggee-tables untill the third grade (per my mom) untill my third grade teacher made fun of me in front of the whole class till i cried....
i think it would be the same as my cosmonaut impression. Czech, check. (i know you just wanted me to say that)
"Czech, check. (i know you just wanted me to say that)"
yep. :)
I was greatly made fun of in school for call daddy, “deddy”.
I found that if you use words like YAAAAR or ARRRRRAAY, WHAT THE HELL it becomes easier to imitate the accent.
Or start off sentences with BASICALLY. The guy on Heroes seems to mix in a middle eastern twinge to his accent. That's what Ajay Naidu did in Office Space though I think they obscured that character's origin intentionally with a nonsensical name and a hodge podge accent.
I got made fun of calling my mom "mummy".
i called my grandmother "pati", which to most other kids sounds like "toilet". didnt go well for me.
nevertheless, there does tend to be a general similarity even across languages as distinct as punjabi and tamil that seems surprising
I agree, and my contention is that you have to be trained to hit the accent that includes the similarities between all the Indian accents. This holds true for Americans, DBDs and ABDs. I'm a DBD, and I can't do Apu's voice, because I don't have a typical Indian accent (none of us do). Hank Azaria can do Apu much better than I can because he has trained himself.
I also took a lot of $hit for calling my parents "amma" and "appa". didnt phase me though. i never outgrew that.
For all of you who are curious ;-)
"Cliff" is a pseudonym I use for blogging purposes only. Why Cliff...? you may ask.....I am a big fan of Cliff Clavin
I don't think there is interchange of v and w with foreign desis. For example, people with indian accent say 'vest' and 'west' the same way. in fact, w is redundant.
Cliff Claven!
I knew it!
I was trying to reconcile your DBD with an image of a middle-aged, thin-haired white guy in gray shorts with black knee socks, who can't shut up about innane factoids.
Even odder: There are certain moments in American Desi where it seemed as if people who spoke English with a "perfect Indian accent" were speaking Hindi as if they were reading literally from a poorly romanized script. It was so weird.
Down the line If I have a kid who will try to teach me the difference between W and V..then "somebody is gonna get a hurt real baad" :)
Why does Kashmir become Kashmere in Amreekanese? Likewise Samir becomes Samere.
you know youll think your kid is just being "sooo cute. sooo sveeet".
Aw dude, I remember crying to my primary (elementary) school teacher and telling her I wanted to see my Bapuji. With my little six year old squeak combined with a New Zealand accent, she thought I was crying about my budgie. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why she kept insisting on telling me about a budgie when I had bigger problems!
We've got the same problem with actors doing broad Indian accents downunder. Some can, some really can't.
So basically ABD's can't do the Indian English accent well and when we speak in the mother tongue we have an American accent, only thing we're good for is American English dude!
It really annoys me when my little cousins make fun of me when I'm trying to speak Gujurati. I already know it's not good but when they start giggling I want to slap them upside the head. The sad thing is that I can't make fun of their English because they all go to English medium schools and their English is great.
Oh the indignity of it all!
Cliff...meant to add "but I couldn't reconcile the two".
Glad to know you're not into vanity nom de plumes.
As for the accent business in Hollywood, it has yet to put authentic southern accents on film and let's not even get into all the bad Spanish accents in American film. There is only now an effort being made to make a Cuban character not sound like a Mexican character and vice versa.
Amardeep, nobody seems to have picked up on the fact that your post is classed under 'Humor' and is heavily dripping with irony :)
Folks - there is not only no single 'Indian accent', there is also no single 'American' or even 'British' or Canadian accent. Accent is at least as much about listening as about speaking, and being primed to listen to particular markers of difference in patterns of speech, and about cognitive processing shortcuts - as it is about anything real.
And it is rather more about prejudice than about genuine articulatory difficulty. Let us recognize that as we laugh our asses off at silliness like here.
I had absolutely no 'accent' before The Simpsons took off as a show. People told me this, and it was true, and I accepted it, and that was no big deal. Not something to be particularly 'proud' about, then or now, given the specifics of my background.
But, now that the show has been running as long as it has, suddenly people 'notice' the accent, often only after they see me in person. I shrug it off, but I recognize the prejudicial subtext. Even South Asian kids born here, (to say nothing of adults born and brought up here) are being teased with the Apu faux-accent - so I can't feel too bad.
So laugh a little, or a lot, but about the whole thing, not at someone. Don't ridicule or judge others solely for their supposed 'accent', especially across immigrant generations - ABD vs DBD. Remember, it could happen to you too, whether you're ABD or DBD, from either group, as well as from other groups. So don't buy into this whole otherization program.
Aren't there words in several Indian languages that distinguish between V and W?
When I first went to India as a kid, I was confused what "Jed" meant until someone explained to me it was Z.
Speaking of accents, the funniest were when indian immigrants would return to India and then try to talk to their Indian relatives in a more exagerrated "american" accent which sounded kind of stretched out enunciations with a whiny tone.
White friends in college and work settings speak to me normally. But I noticed at Indian gatherings, some of the white people begin to sound like stock white characters out of a Wayans movie with exagerrated WASPY accents. An overly polite dorky tone.
I notice my Indian cousins use profanity like shit as common usage in family gatherings. Some even use fuck a lot. I had to explain to them that words that were better restricted to school settings away from their parents and uncles and aunts.
Indira Varma. I had no idea she was only half Indian who grew up in England. I thought she got the body language and facial expressions spot on in that silly movie Kama Sutra. She could have been a native for all I knew. I forget how accurate her accent was though it is immaterial since people did not speak English back then, anyway.
Fisher Stevens is seen as a major caricature in Short Circuit. But I didnt think he was that far off from a guy I knew in college. He was at that time termed as an FOB, known here as ABDs. It was easy to snicker at him because he was obnoxious and dorky at the same time. So you didn't feel sorry for him.
happened to me tonnes in jr high/high school. i didnt really understand. I asked in my american accent "do i really sound like that to you?", the answer was to repeate what i just said in an Apu accent.
Short Circuit, The Simpsons, and Indiana Jones. Those 3 put together f-cked up my childhood.
"It really annoys me when my little cousins make fun of me when I'm trying to speak Gujurati"
When I called home from uni I used to go from English to gujju,
“yeah, pachee that teacher came in, bloody ghuthero. Ok, aw-jo”
@40:
Bess,
I am also a mailman in real life(the electronic kind)!! and I am full of useless trivia!
Chachaji, we aren't laughing at anyone, we are laughing together. For me and all my ADB friends, these stories are just another thread that ties us together.
this thread is bringing back so many memories. when i was a kid, i saw my cousin in india for the first time. we were both about 7. we were playing some game involving the alphabet. there was a disagreement on whether "zed" or "zee" was correct. someone had to die.
@42:
Dude.....that is the wrong attitude!
OMG, LMAO! My cousins do that all the time. My masi yells at them if they throw in too many english words when they are speaking to her.
I do believe that fluency, written and spoken, in mother tongues is diminishing greatly in the large cities in India. Especially in places like Bombay where kids go to english medium schools, speak english and maybe hinglish with their friends and maybe speak their mother tongue at home with the family. None of my bombay cousins can read or write Guju even though they speak it fluently. But they are constantly throwing in english words. When challenged to speak all Gujurati and not say a single english word for 5 minutes, my cousin couldn't do it!
I noticed Punjabis tend to have a very thick accent. South Indians tend to have a nasal accent and more of a tendency to mix v and w. Then you have the famous Malayalee "simbalee" for simply.
That is correct.
Even though my middle-school English teacher in India taught me (us) the difference in pronunciation (her example was "Rip Van Winkle"), I never really picked up on it till I landed in the US and my cousin indirectly made fun of it while we were out at a restaurant. Of course, he didn't tell me how to correct it, but that event triggered the memory back to Mrs. Verma's class, and a bulb lit up. :)
BIG, your comment reminded me of a quote from Happiness. :) :)
Helen Jordan: I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you.
Joy Jordan: But I'm not laughing.
(not implying that you meant it that way)
Isn't Adhir Kalyan South African (not ABD)?
Isn't Adhir Kalyan South African (not ABD)?
Yes -- and I didn't know that before. Anyway, perhaps that explains why his accent seemed a little off to me. (I still don't think it's a convincing "just arrived" Indo/Pak accent)
British Asians are the nobility among the Indian diaspora. The end.
V and W can be fixed. However pronouncing the 'the', 'thank you' is a difficult sound to master. I dont believe any Indian languages have the 'th' sound.
#58 -
.....
Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wW96Z9AJf38
THANK YOU.
Agreed.
I used to drive my mama (maternal uncle) crazy with this...I'd keep challenging him to say 'think' or 'thought' in the SAME WAY that I said it, and he just couldn't.
Speaking of "th".. I just can't get over the way some girls in LA say "teinks"...
Why does Kashmir become Kashmere in Amreekanese? Likewise Samir becomes Samere.
We Amreekans insist on pronouncing every 'R' we encounter, except for people from Boston, who don't have this particular linguistic hang-up.
This pronounced R 'colors' the vowel directly before it, changing what it sounds like. the 'ee+r' sound in English (near, fear) is not a pure 'ee' sound because of that R. It's ee + schwa + R (Indian accents use ee + schwa for these same words as well, but drop the R).
So Samir because Samee-ur ... the pure 'ee' + r is a very foreign sound to American ears.
As far as V/W, the same letter is used in Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi and a few other Indian languages for both sounds. Sometimes it is closer to v, sometimes closer to w in regular speech in the mother tongue. Try explaining the difference between the two 'd' sounds in Hindi to a typical monolingual American and see how far you get - it is the same thing, but reversed.
"@16: Puli,
thanks for that...no, I am totally serious. My first grader and kindergartner often correct me when I mix up my v and w's. It is funny and we laugh our asses off :-)
the same conversation i used to have with my mom in the first grade."
some of the greatest moments i've had with my dad are trying to get him to say the word "voodoo." funniest times of my life!!! every now and then, during some serious moment, we'll look at each other and say "voodoo" and we'll dissolve into hysterics.
My pre schooler figured out this accent thing recently. She would ask for water, pronounced in the American english way and then close up her mouth and say "woter" trying to sound more like me , I guess. I think she felt I would only understand if she said it the way I do...we still cant stop laughing when she does that:-)
Wait, what do you two mean by "the th sound"? If you mean an unaspirated "th" like the one pronounced in "theta", then shouldn't the Devanagari त suffice? Or the Tamil த? Amitabh, was your uncle aspirating it like in "थ"? I ask because I know a lot of people who aspirate the "th" in "third floor" because they're used to transliterating थ as "th" and therefore pronounce "th" as "थ". (As a fine point of interest, the Tamil த substitutes for the voiceless त and the voiced द, and because Tamil does not have aspirated sounds, it is also used for थ and ध, all of which basically means that if you transliterate Devanagari-based languages into Tamil, forget about a faithful transliteration).
again! perpetuating the myth of the aspirational model minority!
Aspirating, not aspiring! If you persist with bad humor, I shall eventually become heggs (eggs-aspirated).
@Pravin RE: #32
You hit on something really important. Sometimes word choice completely ruins (or makes) an accent or a bad ABD comedy routine. I put it in the same category as the awful costume choices which I only hope are forced on Indian actors by utterly confused directors.
another example of the "th" sound in an indian language is the "thatha" in gurmukhi/punjabi
Ok, I certainly got schooled on the 'th' sound. Let me qualify my earlier statement: Hindi/Urdu dont have the 'the' sound.
Ok, I certainly got schooled on the 'th' sound. Let me qualify my earlier statement: Hindi/Urdu dont have the 'the' sound.
yeah, careful on generalizing about indian languages. too many people generalize from their own cultural background. e.g., i didn't know that punjabi had tones, manish didn't know that bengali didn't have gender.
ACfD - to which sound are you referring - 'th' as in 'the' - because wouldn't that just be a 'dh' as in 'hindi' or 'urdu'?
I thought 'thappad' is Hindi and has the 'th' sound in it?
do not cast aspir-sions on my yoomor.
the oxford catalog of stereotypes 0f 2007 says that this is because all bengalis are effete.
Yup, "Hindi" rhymes with "in thee". In fact I've seen the word "The" transliterated as "दि". As in "दि sword of Tipu Sultan" (too lazy to transliterate the rest of it).
See I always associated the Perfect Indian English Accent, or should I say, ACCINT ;p with that chip-on-the-shoulder, BBC-esque, speak-it-better-than-those-bastards-who-taught-us, upper crust Indian accent.
The ones that parents are always trotting out to kids growing up elswhere and acquiring other twangs to their voices (for me, it's the not-so-subtle fush-end-chups Kiwi accent)...
It's all 'Fawh goodness sake, pleeze pronounce your words cleeeeearly. Hwhot kind of accint is that?' snootiness.
*Although in saying that it was just yesterday that I got my v's and w's mixed up in a v nostalgic moment ;) Hehe gota lowe those times, 12 years after mowing avay.
in school, i used to play this game with my frds. not a single one could go beyong 2 min...also i get corrected abt my accent in all three languages...hindi, marathi and english. once i was also told to prononuce my surname in a more marathi tone...still dont get it right :(
I used to know a brother and sister (dbds who emigrated at a very young age--single digits) who spoke completely unaccented Texan, except with their parents. Very strange. And the last word of every sentence had an "-uh" appended to its end(uh).
I used to think I did a great pan-Indian accent. Then I started hearing Ponniah Manikavasagam pronounce "US" as "yooyes" on Free Speech Radio News and realized that no such thing as a Pan-Indian accent exists. (Incidentally, PC Dubey's way of ending every sentence on an upturn (on the same show) never ceases to crack me up.)
Speakin of desi actors....just caught Kal Penn on House, minus any lame accent though
Wonder if Indians in South Africa speak with a British accent.
I got a few friends from RSA both white and desi, they have regional accents. The white cape town accent sounds very posh, almost like someone from a British Public school like Eton. Jo'Berg white accent sounds entirely different almost mixed with afrikans.
Plus the whites in south africa come from different backgrounds some are british and dutch but you also have many who migrated from other former colonies like Germans from Namibia and Portuguese from Angola.
Same with desi south african is hardly British, sounds more like african.
They also use funny words like a "Robot" for Traffic Lights. The first time my friend used it I din't get what she was saying. Stop before the robot, I was like looking where, i dont see any.
I am a dbd..my fake american accent is preety decent..although some of you may disagree...but the hardest word I had to master was utility.
for months I kept saying U-Ti-Lity (Mu-ni-ci-pal-ity, etc) when I was talking without thinking. Finally U-Tility comes natually to me like elevator.
Yes, exactly. Which is different than the American way of saying 'th' in words like thanks or thinks or thorough.
On a different note...I know at least two people who were not 'good' in ANY language...one was a family acquaintance of Marwari background who grew up in Mumbai...He spoke a Marwari-based mishmash at home (but did not know pure Marwari), learned a slangy Mumbaiyya Hindi and street Marathi outside the home (but never mastered good Hindi or Marathi), and learned English at school without becoming fluent in that either (he was proficient enough to work in Corporate America though). His wife was good in Hindi and English.
The other person was an Azerbaijani who went to Russian-language schools his whole life...spoke poor Russian, poor Azeri, and poor English. He used to laugh and say "There is no language I can speak really well".
Many years ago when ABB was formed ( Asea and Brown Boveri) the official corporate language was "poor English". No I am not joking.
All you need to know and much, much more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English
i propose we begin with a set of tongue twisters that help you perfect the accent. if you're learning Spanish, for example, you'll try to say "tres tristes tigres trigo tragando en un trigal."
can one of you FOB ESL mofos come up with an IEA version of that?
I don't know what exactly I speak, after all these years, but when a tech support guy asked me how to spell Amrita on Monday, I had to call him out on that.
we loved having the mallus say oLymbic aszoziation of ernaguLam.
Having been in the US for over 7 years ad interacted with a lot of gujju families, I've heard all kinds of accents coming out of their mouth irrespective of their generations. I ve heard first and 2nd generation gujjus use very IBD accents, Desi (gawti) accents , accents with that indian touch in them and flawless american accents. But most second generation desis (ABDs) speak in american accents with that slight indian touch meaning if you were to talk to them over the phone you can conclude they are Americans of Indian ancestry. Thats just my experience. Some DBDs and their kids (ABDs) whove lived here for ever even speak with a heavy gujju accent. The most popular accent mis-pronounciations I ve heard from those DBDs mouths are "Sues" instead of "shoes" and "shocks" instead of "socks". " Names like "ashish" is pronounced "aasees". Maybe it depends on where they originally come from (From towns in Gujurat). Even some gujju words and accents they use are sometimes beyond my comprehension (having grown up in mumbai my gujju vocabulary is relatively limited) Also, Gujjus from Bombay have a more polished english and gujju accent comparitively.
Ernagulam? Is that your nate-yew blace? (with apologies to Shashi Tharoor ;-) )
My DBD husband and I (a Slav) both still occasionally mix up our v's and w's, especially when we're tired. Our accents sound nothing alike, but we chuckle over this common obstacle (and reminisce about the days when we didn't know those were supposed to sound different).
On the other hand, the difference between the "normal" and retroflex d (and t) still escapes me. I can sort of pronounce them differently, though the retroflex is not correct, but I sometimes don't even hear the difference. Oh well, still a lot to learn.
Favorite accent related comment of all time: "You don't sound the way you look" or its converse (after first meeting someone on the phone.)
I'm an ABD with what I'm told is a Chicagoan accent. Guess I need to update my Chicagoan ABD look.
Never got teased for the amma/appa thing, the fellow primary schoolers thought it was cute. My accent drifts somewhere between Dutch English, Indian English and (British) Queen's English. Never mixed up my v's and w's. The parents speak convent school English. Has anyone else noticed that DBD's have a tendency to drop articles?
BIGirl: I will say one more time - there is no such language called GUJURATI. The language spoken in the state of GUJARAT is called GUJARATI. Everyone got that? I am sure people from Kerala would not like it if someone calls their language as Malloyam !! The debate on this thread reminds me of couplets from great Gujarati poet "Akhho". It goes:
Bhasha ne shu varge bhur
Rann maa jite ae saacho shur.
Loosely translated as:
Clinging to the language is not important, the guy who wins in the battle, is the real brave one.
Reminds me of "TelUgu, not TelEgu". :)
GUJURATI, GUJARATI. TELEGU, TELAGU. Tamil, Tamizh, tamizhl, tamizhlhzhlzhzlzhzl....tamilzhlsifhas/vfa/lsugfa**q?
the V pronounciation controversy(check at 1:19 into the clip) makes it all the way to the big screen ;-)
@ 89:
my parents are both in the teaching field (my mum's a speech pathologist), and despite being in Texas for almost 30 years, I frequently catch them saying "GRA-choo-ity" for "graTUity."
i vill tell you.
ABD/ DBD differences:
Perimeter
Thermometer
Certificate
@95;
Ernagulam?..........I have never heard a malayalee say that.....it is always been "Eranakulam". BTW my mom's house is not too far from there- Mulakulam :-).
However..I have heard pseudo mumbayites say "Mayheem" for "Mahim" and "Kayleey-ann" for "Kalyan".
do abd's accent differ from the surrounding american accent?
Puli, oh, ABD accents do vary. You got the Shymalan/30 Rock secretary guy slighty nasal accent common to quite a few. Hopefully the Ramesh Ponnuru wimpy accent is not as common. Mine is a hybrid as I lived in the north, south, and India. Sanjay Gupta represents another type of voice/accent(i guess I am including vocal texture here too as it seems to affect the accent a little bit).
By the way, I think KERPAL is great. The Kerpal joke is old, but I do think Kerpal(who must be some ABD) does a great impression of an angry DBD who is a little loco.
@109:
I find it slightly different.....can't exactly say what it is, I am not a sound expert, it may be a little pitchy.
isnt that the jerky boys?
When talking to my relatives, I find myself pulling a fob-cent... not quite an accent, but I drop a lot of articles and just generally speak in short, clipped sentences and use "fob" grammar. Actually, I find myself using the fob-cent around anyone who's not a native English speaker... I dunno if I'm trying to make it easier for them or just adapting to their way of speaking.
Also, in middle school I used to say eu-ROPE-ee-yen and protest-ant... till I got made fun of for it :\
TelUgu not TelAgu or TelEgu! :)
The worst accent ever is an Indian immigrant trying to sound American (in order to fit in better with Americans). I have a cousin who does this. I keep telling him it sounds horrible...but he can't see it. His orginal accent is so much more classy.
Does anyone else out there switch accents? I came to the US when I was six, and I speak in an Indian accent with others who speak in an accent which sounds remotely like it comes from the subcontinent, and in an American accent with everyone else. In mixed company I get completely discombobulated.
Yeah, I do that too..I am DBD as well..people @ work have commented that I have no accent around them but develop a very strong accent as soon as I pick up the phone to talk to my husband..I smile and tell them its actually the other way around, I talk to my husband in my natural lilt, while have a differect accent when I talk to them. I used to be able to switch it off and on, not so much any more, they both seem to run together now..except when I catching up with my old college buddies back in Bombay, when my Bombay accent comes bounding back in full vigor :-)
RE: ABD Accents.
Well, I've noticed that some ABDs have a slight Indian accent--the kind that you can pick up when you speak to them on the phone--they have a slightly different voice quality. I wonder if that is physiological thing? Or is it because ABDs grew up around DBD parents who have accents? I have no idea.
In any case, I do speak Hindi with a slight American accent and tend to speak more Henglish instead of pure, proper Hindi. Sad, but true. Another thing I have trouble with in Hindi is that I always use the formal "aap" form, and have trouble using the informal "Tu" form, because when I was growing up, I was only around adults and never got to use the "Tu" form.
Puli, I think it has been misattributed to the Jerky Boys. Maybe because of the Indian guy.
ptr_vivek, I am the opposite. I was born here, but lived in India for a little while later. So my accent changes too.
having a seperate accent for your spouse is cool.
Regarding Ramamurthy's accent on Heroes, I had read that they focus-grouped the first episode and people preferred the British accent to the Indian one, so the producers told him to change it. Now, whether that's because people aren't comfortable with an Indian accent generally, or Ramamurthy's *particular* accent, it's hard to say. Leaving accuracy aside for a moment, he really did sound more at ease with the British accent IMHO.
Speakin of desi actors....just caught Kal Penn on House, minus any lame accent though
He got the best parts of the episode. The thing with the defibrillator was a total House move.
Talking about his accent on house- it did not seem to be his "real" accent. Looked like he was trying to put more bass in to his voice to sound more authoritative, being a doctor and all.
YO DAD, I didn't mean to offend you. In fact I am GujArati, but it's just an old habit and also a result of typing fast. Budhu buraber che?
# 122 BIGirl:
Edit: Gujjews speak Hebrew ;)
Did anyone catch Pranab Mukerjee and the CEO of Infosys On Charlie Rose last night? I think Charlie's compiler had to be running overtime :-)
Absolutely not!!! Are you implying that Indians, whether ABD or DBD, have a tendency towards an Indian accent because the structural aspects of our vocal apparatus are different than other humans???
The answer is no...we all (humans) have the same physiology...accent is a result of environment and surroundings. If some ABDs have a slight Indian twinge to their accent (I'm one of them by the way) then that's because of the various complex SOCIAL factors that people have been discussing throughout this thread.
My boss does that. He is Canadian born ABD (I guess CBD, then), and his accent changes when he talks to DBDs. He even pronounces his name different.
That's not uncommon among DBD's too. I'm Bombay born and bred and we mix Hindi, English and Marathi at home. I haven't seen anyone speak pure, pure Hindi in my life. For example, we say "driver" not "vahan-chalak". I don;t even know what the Hindi words for common words like "bus", "train", "school", "telephone", "tv" etc are. I suspect my speech has more Hindi than yours, and I speak with a Desi accent, but barring the accent you will probably feel right at home in Bombay
Regarding. "aap" and "Tu", many people are of the opinion that "Tu" should only be used while insulting someone. In my family, everyone calls each other "aap". We use "Tu" only when we are being informal. Me and my brother call each other "Tu", though, because we are used to being informal.
Well, you should hear the babel that my 2 sisters and I talk in, with each other only : its an unique amalgam of Bombaiya Hindi(think Munnabhai), Marathi, Brahminical Tamil and English..its horrendous and beautiful @ the same time, the breadth and scope of the vocabulary is beyond parallel and its awesome when all we have to do is for one of us to say one particular phrase, and the other 2 know exactly what she is talking about and go into peals of laughter. This is subject to much eye-rolling from our ABD kids and much confused bewilderment from our hubbies who speak real Hindi, Tamil & English but cannot understand a word of this particular patois that is unique to where we grew up, its awesome, our little language of our own..come to think of it, its really cool to have 2 sisters to share this with as well :-)
For TV it's TVBV, no matter where in India you are from :P
What i find interesting is this one word that grates me when spoke in the 2 accents-
Executive
in the UK it's pronounced it as in 'ex-eh-cu-tive'
but DBDs pronounce it 'exe-cuuuuutiv'
not sure if this translates well via email, but when spoken the second version defeinetly sounds different.
I do like the fact the vocab in India is same as UK, makes life easy.
@dr1001
another one - perimeter
took me forever to change from pe-ree-me-ter to peri-miter
and yes I switch accents too...are there any ME/DXB raised DBDs on sepia? depending on which school we attended out there...we had an accent too.
#122 Khharaab Bhartiya Chhokri: Baddhuu barabar chhe beti - chinta naaa karish !
I do not know about Hindi but in Gujarati