RE: Many English people can't speak English?
July 14, 2015 at 7:14 pm
(This post was last modified: July 14, 2015 at 7:26 pm by Regina.)
It's an art everyone needs to learn, it's called code-switching
When my Grandfather was alive he'd always speak in Maltese to his family and friends, and he'd get side-eyed by the English who would think they were listening to a "Paki". No he could actually speak English, probably better than you can, but why should he when he's with other people from his own country?
That said, there are some immigrants that I do think "really?". When I was working in retail the other year this woman came in and couldn't speak a word of English. However her daughter, who was not much younger than I am, not only spoke English perfectly buy clearly had been living here for years if not born here. That does make me think hang on, in all the years you have (clearly) lived here you haven't even got a grasp of basic English? That is a problem to me, because I am someone who comes from an immigrant background myself and it's people like her who make this stereotype about us.
On young British-born people, again they need to learn to code-switch. It's fine talking in slang with eachother, but when you're in a professional or academic environment it's not the time to be talking about "whatagwanin".
I also take issue with this "Jafaican" accent that has appeared out of nowhere in the last 5 years or so. NOBODY before say 2008 used to talk like that, absolutely nobody, this is a fake urban accent young kids have pulled out their arses. You don't sound cool because you "tuk layk dis", you sound fucking stupid. It's not like real Jamaican or AAVE, which are genuine black dialects of English which have naturally developed over centuries of slavery and racial segregation. This is a generation of kids (not just black, some are white and Asian too) suddenly forcing this fake accent and that's why it doesn't sound right. It's forced.
When my Grandfather was alive he'd always speak in Maltese to his family and friends, and he'd get side-eyed by the English who would think they were listening to a "Paki". No he could actually speak English, probably better than you can, but why should he when he's with other people from his own country?
That said, there are some immigrants that I do think "really?". When I was working in retail the other year this woman came in and couldn't speak a word of English. However her daughter, who was not much younger than I am, not only spoke English perfectly buy clearly had been living here for years if not born here. That does make me think hang on, in all the years you have (clearly) lived here you haven't even got a grasp of basic English? That is a problem to me, because I am someone who comes from an immigrant background myself and it's people like her who make this stereotype about us.
On young British-born people, again they need to learn to code-switch. It's fine talking in slang with eachother, but when you're in a professional or academic environment it's not the time to be talking about "whatagwanin".
I also take issue with this "Jafaican" accent that has appeared out of nowhere in the last 5 years or so. NOBODY before say 2008 used to talk like that, absolutely nobody, this is a fake urban accent young kids have pulled out their arses. You don't sound cool because you "tuk layk dis", you sound fucking stupid. It's not like real Jamaican or AAVE, which are genuine black dialects of English which have naturally developed over centuries of slavery and racial segregation. This is a generation of kids (not just black, some are white and Asian too) suddenly forcing this fake accent and that's why it doesn't sound right. It's forced.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
