How accents make language more beautiful | Muftiat Adeyi | TEDxUniversityofMississippi — Transcript

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1. 0:16Imagine
2. 0:17being at a water park.
3. 0:21A place where joy and laughter should
4. 0:23flow freely.
5. 0:26A place of laughter and splashes.
6. 0:31You are speaking your mother tongue.
7. 0:34A language that carries centuries of
8. 0:38stories and songs.
9. 0:41When suddenly someone interrupts you
10. 0:44and says,
11. 0:46"What the are you speaking?
12. 0:50Is it Jamaica?"
13. 0:53I watched as the middle-aged Caucasian
14. 0:56man's face contorted with disgust and a
15. 1:00domineering audacity as he interrupted
16. 1:03my conversation in Yoruba at a water
17. 1:07park in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
18. 1:11In that moment, I watched as the
19. 1:13stranger's face became a map of
20. 1:15prejudice
21. 1:17and my identity became an anomaly.
22. 1:21My Yoruba language, a taste of home, was
23. 1:24no longer a song. To this man's here, it
24. 1:28became a threat. And it looked like my
25. 1:31existence was a threat to him.
26. 1:36Imagine a world where everyone sounded
27. 1:40the same.
28. 1:41Flat, monochrome, without texture.
29. 1:46It would be like painting a masterpiece
30. 1:49with one dull color.
31. 1:52In that kind of world, there wouldn't be
32. 1:55the rich melodic richness of accent
33. 2:00painting the canvas of human expression.
34. 2:04Yet, we are somehow moving towards this
35. 2:06monotony where some accents are treated
36. 2:10like symphonies and others are called
37. 2:12sensory overload like someone recently
38. 2:15pointed out that
39. 2:16pointed out on social media.
40. 2:20I'm a Nigerian scholar in Mississippi.
41. 2:23I come from a country with over 520
42. 2:27languages where English is the official
43. 2:30language as a result of colonial legacy
44. 2:35by the British.
45. 2:39Now, back home, we have our own
46. 2:41complicated relationship with accent
47. 2:45where some children who come back from
48. 2:47abroad with British or American accent
49. 2:51are treated like sophisticated or more
50. 2:53intelligent.
51. 2:55Now,
52. 2:57our research shows that
53. 3:00accents and languages in standard French
54. 3:03and and Creole shows a complicated
55. 3:07social and a dynamic power play
56. 3:11where some accents are treated as proper
57. 3:14and others are treated as foreign.
58. 3:17But who decides what's proper
59. 3:20and foreign? And what does this
60. 3:22relationship tell us about
61. 3:25power,
62. 3:26prejudice,
63. 3:28and the society and privilege?
64. 3:34This hierarchy of accent followed me to
65. 3:38the University of Mississippi.
66. 3:42"She needs to speak in American accent.
67. 3:45Her voice gives me migraine."
68. 3:48Some students wrote in my TA evaluation.
69. 3:53The irony?
70. 3:54The same student had said that I needed
71. 3:57to speak louder.
72. 3:59But here I was realizing that the
73. 4:01problem was not volume,
74. 4:04but it was that I didn't sound like
75. 4:06them.
76. 4:08Here was I from a country whose official
77. 4:12language is English being told that my
78. 4:14English was not English enough.
79. 4:19Encounters like these
80. 4:21are why I believe that celebrating
81. 4:24accents and languages does not pose a
82. 4:26threat to anyone's identity. Rather, it
83. 4:30opens up a world to cultural
84. 4:32appreciation and deeper understanding
85. 4:35even to some of the food we eat.
86. 4:39According to a research by Alain Moya,
87. 4:43it shows that accent enables linguistic
88. 4:46profiling where some qualified personnel
89. 4:50are denied for the job that they
90. 4:52qualified for because of how they sound.
91. 4:55Yet, another research by Ellen Bialystok
92. 4:58at York University shows that bilinguals
93. 5:03have
94. 5:04better way of solving problems. They're
95. 5:06good at multitasking and getting things
96. 5:09things done.
97. 5:11Yet, we have turned this cognitive
98. 5:14ability into a perceived deficit
99. 5:19where some accents are deemed proper
100. 5:22and some are deemed fake and some
101. 5:25accents are seen as a measure of
102. 5:27anyone's intelligence.
103. 5:31This is why I started a classroom
104. 5:33exercise.
105. 5:35On the first day of the semester,
106. 5:37I write Ajegunle on the board.
107. 5:42Ajegunle is a name of a vibrant
108. 5:44community in Lagos.
109. 5:48I ask my students to pronounce it.
110. 5:52They stumble.
111. 5:53They laugh.
112. 5:55They try again.
113. 5:57But in that moment, I tell them,
114. 6:01"Just because you cannot pronounce this
115. 6:03word does not mean that you're
116. 6:06unintelligent.
117. 6:08It only shows that your linguistic
118. 6:10capabilities have limitations."
119. 6:15In that moment, something remarkable
120. 6:17happens and something shifts with the
121. 6:19students.
122. 6:21They realize that navigating a different
123. 6:24sound system from theirs is a way to
124. 6:28explore other linguistic world.
125. 6:31Ajegunle then becomes more than a word.
126. 6:35It becomes a mirror
127. 6:38to check our unconscious biases.
128. 6:42And in that moment, Ajegunle does what
129. 6:45years of lectures cannot do.
130. 6:49It challenges linguistic biases and it
131. 6:53lets students see in real time that
132. 6:56accent and languages is not just about
133. 6:59perfection, but that it's about
134. 7:01connection.
135. 7:05Look at Wole Soyinka,
136. 7:09the Nobel laureate who is also a
137. 7:11Nigerian.
138. 7:13He writes in English,
139. 7:16but he bends the English language to
140. 7:18carry the weight of the Yoruba
141. 7:20philosophy
142. 7:22so that when he writes phrases like
143. 7:25"Even a tear-filled eye preserves its
144. 7:28function of sight,"
145. 7:31he is not just creating poetry.
146. 7:34It's about preserving world views.
147. 7:38And he uses the English language to show
148. 7:41that language is not just about
149. 7:44mere communication, but it can also be
150. 7:46used to preserve world views.
151. 7:49And he's also creating a linguistic
152. 7:52fusion.
153. 7:54This kind of fusion can be seen in our
154. 7:57everyday lives.
155. 8:00Consider the
156. 8:01Mexican-Korean
157. 8:04cuisine or the Indian-Chinese cuisine
158. 8:07and how they create a form of cultural
159. 8:10and
160. 8:11cuisine creativity.
161. 8:15Now,
162. 8:17consider gumbo,
163. 8:20that quintessential Southern dish
164. 8:24with the name coming from West Africa
165. 8:27kigombo,
166. 8:29the filé powder coming from Choctaw,
167. 8:32India,
168. 8:33the roux from French.
169. 8:36Every bowl of gumbo tells a story of
170. 8:39cultural collision
171. 8:41and the making of American South.
172. 8:46Here's what's remarkable.
173. 8:49The same person who would eagerly devour
174. 8:52gumbo might still cringe at the West
175. 8:55African word that carries the word
176. 8:58across the Atlantic.
177. 9:02So,
178. 9:04next time you want to talk about an
179. 9:07accent, focus on the power of
180. 9:10communication
181. 9:12and clarity.
182. 9:14In recent times, we are seeing how the
183. 9:17celebration of linguistic diversity
184. 9:21with Korean drama taking the global
185. 9:23stage,
186. 9:25Nollywood taking up showcasing the
187. 9:28Nigerian culture, Bollywood capturing
188. 9:31its audience's attention,
189. 9:34social media banter such as
190. 9:38"Wisdom is chasing you, but you are
191. 9:41running faster" showcases the poetic
192. 9:44genius
193. 9:46of the Nigerian people.
194. 9:50Now,
195. 9:51this tells us that language can be used
196. 9:54for cultural appreciation.
197. 9:59But,
198. 10:01accents do tell more than stories.
199. 10:05They are stories
200. 10:07evolving with the environments that we
201. 10:10immerse ourselves in.
202. 10:14For instance, Lupita Nyong'o once said
203. 10:16that she felt like she was losing
204. 10:18herself when she lost a Kenyan accent.
205. 10:23Yet, we have people like Chimamanda
206. 10:25Adichie and Sofia Vergara who use their
207. 10:30accent daily and authentically,
208. 10:33showcasing that global impact and
209. 10:36accents can coexist.
210. 10:39And that accents are not obstacles and
211. 10:42should not be a measure of anyone's
212. 10:44intelligence.
213. 10:47So,
214. 10:49the next time you hear me speak in my
215. 10:52Nigerian accent,
216. 10:55or you hear an American accent slip into
217. 10:58my Nigerian accent, it's not because I
218. 11:02have suddenly become fake or proper.
219. 11:05It's because I am a product of my
220. 11:07environment.
221. 11:09And our environment changes us and tells
222. 11:12the story of our journey.
223. 11:16So, here's my invitation to you.
224. 11:20The next time you hear an unfamiliar
225. 11:23accent,
226. 11:25treat it like a dish on a friend's
227. 11:28dinner table.
228. 11:30Lean in with curiosity.
229. 11:33Deep your fingers.
230. 11:36Ask questions.
231. 11:38Savor every note and texture of their
232. 11:42voice
233. 11:43because every accent is a recipe passed
234. 11:48down through generations.
235. 11:51Every unusual pronunciation
236. 11:54is an ingredient that adds depth to our
237. 11:57collective human expression and
238. 12:00experiences.
239. 12:04Because in the end,
240. 12:06accents do not diminish our humanity.
241. 12:10They refine it.
242. 12:13So,
243. 12:14next time you hear an unfamiliar accent,
244. 12:19are you brave enough to listen?
245. 12:22Thank you.