So, You Have an Accent

NOTE: I thought I had published this some time ago but it may have disappeared. Actually, on 2nd thought, I think I published it as a note on Facebook. I'm not even sure you can do that anymore. At least, it seems I don't know how to access my own past notes on there anymore.  So much for Facebook.  I still do use it though.

So, I heard a comedian being introduced as someone who was learning what it was like to live 'bi- racially' in Canada. That was what the MC of the show said. Turns out he was part black, part white. Is that new? I thought people like that have been struggling to find their way in Canada for hundred and 50 years or more.

Anyway, he told of how he was asked on the street, “'Where are you from?”

“I'm Canadian."

“No, where are you from?”

“Ottawa!”

“Okay then, where are your parents from?”

And so it went.

I don't know what he is complaining about. People also ask me, “Where are you from?” Now if I was brown-skinned, or as used to be said, red-skinned, then I would have reason to be upset. After all, some of those are what we know call, politically correctly, First Nations people. For the comedian and myself to be upset just shows how we have come to think that we belong here, even though our ancestors were just as much immigrants as anybody else who is not First Nations.

So, the dialogue goes something like this for me:

“'Where are you from?”

“I'm Canadian.”

“No, where are you from?”

“I was born in Manitoba.” I don't want to say Winkler, because I don't know how many people will know where that is. And if they do know where that is, I can just imagine what box they're already putting me in. Mennonite, German, whatever.

“Okay then, where are your parents from?”

I can guess where this is going. But, on my mother's side of the family, my grandfather was born in Canada. On my father's side, his parents came here when they were preschoolers. So, I give them those facts, and they say, “But you have an accent. But I'm not sure what kind of an accent it is.”

I would have to say I wouldn't know either. I really didn't spend much time in Winkler, so how could I get that southern Manitoba Low German accent. My parents spoke English to us 90% of the time. They only spoke Plattdeutsche when they thought they could pull one over on us, but that became less effective as we got older.

Then we lived in two different somewhat isolated communities on Lake Winnipeg. I never thought the first one had much of a local accent, but the second one sure did. Along with a lot of local expressions that we had never heard before. It was Irish and Scottish mixed with First Nations. And we listened to CBC, which was where I heard the show that I mentioned at the beginning. Ah, maybe that was the problem. Blame it on the CBC. That put-on Queen's English accent. Nah, I don't have a CBC accent. Actually, you rarely hear "that" accent on CBC anymore.

But you know what the strangest part of this is? Our family moved to Winnipeg when I was a teenager and I finished high school there. I went to college and worked for a year. Then I moved to Saskatoon, went to university there, and worked for another year. Then I moved back to Winnipeg, took more University and went out working. Maybe I just lived in too many places and developed my own unique accent. But, nobody ever told me I had an accent. Not until I was in my 40s!

What's up with that? Did something happen to my tongue? My lips? My gums? Nobody ever told me aging would bring on something like this.

So, if someone starts asking you those questions, even though you were born here and consider yourself 101% Canadian, don't worry about it. If it hasn't happened to you yet, just wait until you're over 40.

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