dem accent

one of the things that gets my hide is when i hear people with british and american accents pronouncing other-than-of-anglican-origin words without any effort to pronounce it properly, properly here meaning "the way the locals do it".

i have a belgian classmate with a smacking english accent who enjoys anglisising everything, even when i explicitly tell him how to pronounce particular words. he insists that his pronunciation is correct, even when it grates on the ears. he will stand by his way of saying things, oblivious to the fact that he sounds not only offensive, but ignorant as well, especially in the light of exposure to the proper way of pronouncing certain words.

i have heard too often how the ubiquitous american accent can bastardise the sound of certain words, not just filipino words (i once came across a site where filipino was spelled as 'philippino' but i digress, this isn't anything to do with sound, i know) or names, but proper names of countries and other people. classic examples? check out "los angeles", where the "g" has taken on the hard "j" sound, which goes against the logic of hispanic words (which los angeles obviously are, meaning 'the angels'), and therefore must be pronounced as 'los ang-heh-les'. in the tv series "the agency" and "without a trace", actors posing as CIA and FBI agents insist on pronouncing iraq as "ay-rack", prolonging the initial vowel sound, creating a trochee instead of the iambic cadence of putting the stress on the second syllable and using the short "i" sound. of course the same goes for iran, making it sound like a simple sentence, "i ran".

for pinoy readers, i have heard this chinese basher of our beloved balut pronounce the word as ba-lute, injecting an y-grec sound to the "u" that doesn't exist in normal pronunciation.

why does it always turn out that everyone else but the brits and americans know how to pronounce words properly? being a native speaker of english does not automatically mean that you are a competent and even proficient user of it. not at all, i'm afraid. (verrry afraid)

bottom line? it would work for the better good if people exerted effort to be more conscious of how things are pronounced Properly in different parts of the world. it works towards better global harmony and communications and eradicates the pervasive feeling that people of the first world are self-absorbed and, dare i say it, grossly ignorant of the LARGER world that does exist beyond their borders.