scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

27.1.06

the russian accent

so the Dad, i always used to think it was silly, because whenever we were around people whose first language was not english (other than the Mom), he put on that funny accent that sort of might mimic theirs, but doesn't quite succeed at that, and uses the weird phrasing that comes with being translated, and pronouncing everything just a little bit more - and it was hysterically funny. and i know i do the thing with the phrasing, but i don't think i do the accent - at least not right away, like over the course of a dinner, or something; it takes me a good couple of days to get in that particular groove. And this happened to the Dad quite often because my grandparents' first language was not english, and none of their friends' first language was english, and we saw them all regularly.

At some point i explained to him that he was doing this - i don't think he'd quite realized it - and how funny it was and how perfectly unnecessary it was, and he cooled down a bit - it's not nearly such a drastic change any more. so i'd forgotten how funny it was until our friend did it at the Highly International Dinner Party last week.

he's very nice. we like this kid a lot; i used to work with his wife and she's lovely too. And i never quite recognized it before - we've been to several other similar parties with them - but he does the appropriated accent thing as well. and it's even worse than dad's. and it's extra funny because when he's just talking to me (though the Highly International Dinner Party is going on around us) he's talking like a normal person, from chicago or something, and then in the next sentence he's talking to a french postdoc and twisting his mouth all around backwards. i spent the entire evening trying (and almost being perfectly successful, though i might've broken through just once or twice) not to giggle. The wine and russian cognac didn't help (i don't quite know where the wine came from).

and i'm wondering: if dad wasn't aware of this, does our friend here even know? do the internationals notice? am i just preconditioned to recognize it when people talk funny? does it even matter? and considering we're not bestest bestest friends, do i tell him? and how does one bring it up?

scrawled @ 16:12