Accents Are Cool. Word.

This blog post is the result of a slew of conversations I've taken part in, wherein I've found myself constantly being heckled (playfully of course) for not being able to differentiate between my V's and my W's, pronouncing oLEives, as OOlives and much much more.

So I decided to counter the criticism by telling people why accents are cool, even Indian ones.

. It vould be no fun if ve vere to all sound the same- ve'd be generic.

Just imagine, everyone speaks in the same way. What would happen to language? How would it evolve? Sure, I'm not a fan of the chemical unity of words (take Brad Pitt's first half of the name and Angelina Jolie's second half of the name and you Brangelina), something we learnt in 8th grade, but you must admit, words like Muggle and dystopia wouldn't have come in either. We learn so much from words in other languages, specially the ancient ones. Wont it be terrible if we let it all go for the sake of pronouncing something right?

. It helps you identify where someone is from, and how much of an embarassment that place is/isn't for them.

The culture that I come from, the language you use is not seen as the language you are naturally adapted to, specially if you're an Indian who's lived in 'foreign'. You are seem as someone who's trying to pass off as what you are not, denying your roots and culture and history. To a certain miniscule extent I agree. There are many people out there who consciously make an effort to deny their roots by embracing other cultures more than whole-heartedly. There is nothing wrong in that, but it is, in my unesteemed and uneducated opinion, wrong to forget that you are, in equal parts, the living evidence of another culture as well. Again it is yet another defence if you haven't ever been exposed to your primary culture, and lived all your life espousing a secondary culture due to whatever reasons. 

And come on, you know it increases your street cred when you can correctly identify an accent, and indeed, when you get to hear a relatively new one. You wouldnt be able to do that if we all spoke the same 'clean' way.

. Lets not be such pseudo-Westerners.

Self explanatory.

. Entertainment.

You mustn't forget, that in this entire melee, it provides YOU entertainment to hark on someone's accent, see how pronounced it is, how 'weird' it is.

So people, let the Titanic sink, vith its 32 survivors, let the weedeo of it be shown, and embrace the accent that is you! 

WICKS I SAY, WICKS.