Accents and Inclusiveness - Your own experience

It should ideally be wrong to mock people on their accents.😊..But I must confess, I have mocked or rather mimicked Pranab Mukherjee's English and Hindi several times in my school days...😆 But then I was a kid, so I think I deserve a mercy...😆

Interesting question! In my experience I find this over-emphasis on accents to be a surprisingly accepted of discrimination. Frankly this happens everywhere- schools, colleges, universities etc. And the funny part it happens more in non-English speaking countries. I have spend years interacting with Americans and Europeans and they dont usually discriminate or make fun of people's accents. But in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh- this is a huge issue! And more often than not, people making fun dont have great accents themselves. If I take Bollywood for example, no one other than PC speaks English with a proper American accent but should we really judge them by it?

Is judging someone by their accent any better than judging them for their color, religion or sexual preference? In a society where discrimination is such a problem- where 85% dont even know how to speak English, making fun of someone's accent is very rich.

Coming to Ellie, I just want all the contestants to try and speak her native language and not butcher it.

nice post purva-again:)

Originally posted by: -Purva-

The entire class was laughing at me and then I was like I didn't know one had to learn French before sitting in an English class, the least English could do was teach their language in English instead of French.

I highly recommend the read The Mother Tongue to those who are interested in the development of English as we know it today.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mother-Tongue-English-That/dp/0380715430

This is a funny, humorous book with tons of knowledge and anecdotes about English. Like me you will be surprised at how English has evolved in uncanny ways. And pronunciations, spellings, grammatical rules aren't there because they are right. They just happened to come about because some influential people or populations preferred it that way. Back in the day you have some great minds writing journals and letters creatively using a dozen different spellings for the same word in the same document. Sow next tyme u right "I vent to skool" Don't bee two hard on yourself.

And yes that is coming from one major Nazi Grammar Bitch! To illustrate that. I was in kindergarten. I came home one day furious and fuming that my teacher was incapable of teaching me. She was pronouncing Teddy Bear as Teddy Beer. 😆

Sometimes you don't appreciate how other people cope with language barriers unless you experience it yourself. When I went to Brazil with my MBA class, I didn't speak a word of Portuguese. We struggled even placing a simple order at McDonalds. But the citizens were pleasant, smiling and helpful. Of course they giggled and laughed at us, but not one was impatient, belligerent or rude that we didn't speak their language or were holding up the line. After the trip my white American classmates said that they had a whole new appreciation and respect for Hispanics who migrate to USA and don't speak the language.

So the next time you meet someone who doesn't speak well and makes mistakes - of course correct them and help them get better. BUT be respectful that they come from a different background and appreciate their efforts to communicate.

Interesting topic, Purva!