Is my accent a crime?

[Tom Zurinskas]

I went to a universty to talk to linguists.  The head of the department had a German accent.  She taught German.  The French teacher had a French accent.  The Spanish teacher had a Spanish accent.  Possibly it's a good idea to get native speakers of a language to teach it.  Or maybe it's a crime not to?


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling



>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: Is my accent a crime?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 11:42 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> wrote:
> > So it isn't a crime.
>
> No, it isn't. But, sadly, it's not difficult to make a person feel
> that way, especially if that accent is held to be (stereo)typical of
> an entire subset of the "yuman" - as my East-Texas-born mother and my
> Northeast-Pennsylvania-born wife coincidentally say - race.
>
>
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org