THE FAKE ACCENT SYNDROME

BY most criteria, Zambians have a better, untraceable English accent than most fellow Africans. Certainly better than most West and East Africans whose English is redolent with native accent. Better still than most Southern Africans. Such that many Zambians have been asked on a visit to Great Britain where they learnt such good English.

However, there is great concern for those Zambians who speak with a phoney English or American accent. They bring embarrassment to our door. They impinge on the conscience of denizens among us who just can’t stand the cringe-worthy feeling of listening to someone who’s faking a British or American accent.

Not that I have anything against British and American accents, but surely I am not the only Zambian who find the obsession with speaking with contrived accent-especially amongst our radio personnel-quite infuriating.

  

On Tuesday this week I sat in my room listening to an interview on one of our local radio station that featured a named local hip hop artist. I must confess that I writhed in torment and embarrassment at the phoney American accents from both the radio DJ and the artist he was interviewing. Putting on an accent for music is understandable. It’s entertainment. But to use a fake accent for an interview and in a general conversation is a big no no.

 

Throughout the interview I kept asking myself, can’t these gentlemen hear themselves speak? Can’t they realize it make them sound silly? Do they talk like that to their family at the dinner table? 

Now, I understand that with speaking a language also comes learning the correct pronunciations. I really appreciate it when somebody really does their best to sound more natural when speaking that language.

I also understand it’s quite natural for a teenage Zambian growing up in the diaspora to slur towards their host’s nation native accent. And it is understandable for those who are around a certain accent or language for a long enough period of time to have some of it to rub off on them. Some people pick up the subtle intonations and inflections of another language and insert them into their own native tongue without even thinking about it.

However, for an individual to make a conscious decision to use a phoney American or British accent when they’ve never spent sufficient time at the crucial part of their lives in Britain or America is not only ridiculous but horrendous. It’s pretty much silly. Why should someone visit Liverpool for three weeks and come back with a Scouse accent?

Arnold Schwarzenegger who I want to believe need no introduction is a great example that one doesn’t lose an accent that they have had all their life just by moving somewhere else. Regardless of living in Hollywood for over four decades Schwarzenegger and playing several American action heroes, he still maintains his thick Austrian accent. Jean Claude Van Damme also sports his natural Belgian accent even in movies where it’s not particularly appropriate for the character.

Perhaps I shouldn’t even have gone as far as Austria or Belgium to give an example. On Monday morning I listened to Radio 4 Dj Jack ‘The Hot Stepper’ Mwale who had a telephone interview with ‘Zamrock’ godfather Rikki Ililonga. Despite living in the diaspora for so many years the veteran musician-who I should mention is currently in the country-did not speak with contrived accent. Another example I can give is former finance minister Ngándu Magande who has a vast international exposure but still maintains his heavy Naimala accent.

I’m alive to the fact that many people may have no problem to overhear a group of Zambian teenage girls at places like Arcades Shopping Mall use words like ‘duh’ or ‘OMG’ in a Hanna Montana accent. Some might even argue that it really doesn’t matter what accent you speak with.

But what is wrong in speaking with a Zambian accent anyway?  Is it embarrassing to speak with a native accent? Honestly, why should someone who hasn’t gone beyond the borders of our country pronounce local names like a muzungu? Isn’t that a case of inferiority complex? 

Why not be proud of who we are and act as such? Do we have to copy everything from the West? Isn’t using contrived accent some form of language neo-colonialism and a futile departure from our cultural reality?

This may seem like nothing to worry about. If this trend by some amongst of wanting to look or speak like westerners is not checked, soon our hardest job will be to remind ourselves that we are not American or British. Fellow citizens we are not a country with an identity crisis for us to resort to cheap mimicry.

Those who use fake accents may think it is cool, but in the eyes of those they try imitate or rather mimic, it only makes them appear to be lamentably insecure and inadequate.

Moreover, there is no such thing as standard spoken English. For those who may not be aware, there are several English mainstream accents and dialects and not all of them sound pretty even to some fellow Englishmen.

Ladies and gentlemen, a fake accent won’t get you a job or make you look superior. Drop that fake accent and stick with how you are born to sound. After all, nobody likes a fake, except another fake.