Monday, 16 July 2012

Language Discrepancies

My daughter, thinks that she is living in Eastenders, either that or she is auditioning for a part. Out of the blue my polite and well spoken babe, has transformed her language skills to drop out letters and include them where they do not belong. Wa'er has now replaced water, swee'ies instead of sweeties, dir'y, instead of dirty...you get the gist. For the most part she seems to have taken most offence to the letter T. I don't know exactly what the letter ever did to her but apparently it is no longer of use in most of her vocabulary, either that or she is feeling too lazy to include it.

I'm not a snob, far from it, and I consider myself to be a very diverse and open minded individual, but this,  I must say, has thrown me. I find myself correcting her as frequently as she opens her mouth, "no, no, B, there's a T in it hunny", as if she has any idea what i'm talking about. Apart from the obvious spelling issues which could potentially arise when spelling out words in your head at school, it worries me that she would be frowned upon by other parents. Would you take note of the way a child talks and judge them for it? I would be mortified if I thought that I would so judge another child, but at this point my parenting suprises me, so I can't honestly say I wouldn't. 

Do accents really matter? Obviously if you live in an area and your child's accent fits accordingly no one will notice any different, but if you live out of your original area does it matter if your sweet little child speaks differently? Both myself and my OH grew up in South (Souf) London (Landan) and although neither of us have particularly strong accents we slip into it from time to time, especially if in  the company of friends from the area, this I believe is where B has picked up her little bit of slang. Throw in a bit of Yorkshire, where I lived until the age of 6, and where her grandparents originate from and she's got a right little mix going on.

When I moved to London I had a thick Yorkshire accent happening, some of which I still haven't completely lost and since then the entirety of my life living in the South East people have mocked/ commented/ highlighted the fact that I speak, if only a little, differently. This becomes extremely annoying and is the last thing that I want for B.

 So, without trying to sound like a pretentious nitwit, I am correcting her speech, but only because I'm terrified of her accent setting her at some sort of disadvantage and or social outcasting.

7 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if I'd judge a child by their accent. I'm too busy watching how cute they can be. My Mum's side of the family moved up to Norfolk so I sometimes sound like a right bumpkin! Hope this doesn't influence Bump's speech. Enjoyed the blog :o

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  2. Haha, cute 2 year olds? Only when they're asleep. lol. Ah I'm sure she'll be fine. Norfolk folk speak rather posh don't they? Or have I got my accents crossed!

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  3. Mine watch too much Disney Junior so keep coming up with american words such as flashlight and garbage van!

    Came to you via Britmums - happy to link up blogs if you like mine too - it is http://astrongcoffee.blogspot.co.uk/

    Bit busy this week but will sort out linking at the weekend xx

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  4. Haha, I'm suprised B doesn't do that too given her addiction to special agent Oso!

    Your blog looks fab, love the name too! Linked you on mine hun, don't worry I know how hard it can be to find the time to fiddle with blog links! xx

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    1. Just at my mum and dads this week and Dad doesn't like me on the computer - will do as soon as I get home!

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  5. My wife and I live in Souf Landan. She grew up here. I did not. We are expecting twin girls in a few weeks time so will monitor accents over their next few developing years.

    Loving the blog and will definately link to you on mine.

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    1. Haha, keep me posted! good luck with your little ones, Hope it all goes amazingly. Ah thanks, I'll have to take a look at yours asap x

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