Sorry, i didn't get you!

As age takes away bits and pieces of my memory, surely but slowly, and usually at the most crucial moments, leaving me knee deep in my thoughts when I cannot remember the right word for something; I cannot help smiling at the end result of these fights with my brain! As a teenager, I had come across embarrassing moments of others who mixed up similar sounding words (embarrass- embrace, e.g.), but I could only hope I was too inaudible for the friend at the other end of the phone when she called up to ask me how I was. Instead of saying I had been put on a sedative, I think I said 'seductive'! Must have either shocked her, or she would have assumed that I was so sedated that I had forgotten the difference between being sedated and seduced!! Another time, I have mixed up my fizzy drink with my fuzzy logic- now that was really embarrassing because I was with people with whom you are expected to be just right- I am sure, it was that tension of not wanting to make any mistake that made me call my fizzy drink my fuzzy one!

As if that was not enough, it is the various accents of the same language that I have found myself struggling with as much. Only the other day, I was asked a simple question, "Are you a friend of A's?" 

It had to be repeated thrice before I could finally get it. It was  a simple question, but her being from New Zealand and I being from India, and meeting for the first time, I kept on hearing it as "R U a freend of Aeeys?" and in my mind, I was processing it like one big long word "RUafreendofAeeys?" !! Try reading it like that, and tell me if my brain was really not playing tricks with me!

As we spent the next two hours working together and chatting, I realised, it was easier to ignore some words which seemed so different in her accent than to interrupt the flow of conversation; and also because soon I got the hang of where she stretched, paused, or hastened her sounds. 

Quite recently, I also found my friend straining his ear on the phone...speaking to a Peter and asking him to repeat since the line was not very clear. After he finished the call, he said, "It is so difficult to understand their accent sometimes...especially on the phone!" 

“Is that why you kept saying the line was broken…not clear?”

“:)” a big grin was what I got as an affirmative reply.

While our ears have become proficient in recognising accents; Indian, British, American, Arabic, Filipino, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Scottish, Irish, South African, Australian and sometimes, even Russian; understanding them is a different story. 

A Scottish neighbour and I speak often enough to understand each other's accent (I hope!). I have grown to love her accent but still have to concentrate on her lips sometimes when she is talking, and sometimes, I just nod; hoping whatever she said was good enough to be passed off with a nod. My real problem appears when she suddenly changes the subject and asks me a totally out-of-the-blue question!

All this makes me wonder whether there is anything like a 'native' language speaker really? Unless what you speak can be understood by your audience, how does it matter whether you learnt a language from the moment you were born, or picked it up along the way?  Does that also mean one can never learn a language enough; good enough; for its different dialects and accents to be spoken and understood perfectly well? Is that why we celebrate diversity? I guess so :). If you have ever overheard the conversations of the our very own Punjabi women at the airport waiting for their UK flights, you would know what I mean. The ease with which they switch between their true UK accent and theth Punjabi accent is just pure melody to my ears!