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Michael Kadish
11/16/98
Up until Ben Jonson wrote his Dictionary, when people wrote in English, they wrote what they heard, mimicking people's speech. It really hasn't changed so much since. Well, post Dictionary, we have a set of rules to conform to. But that doesn't mean writers need to adhere to them. Since English society has given itself a more or less hierarchy of accents, a great deal of its literature has at least some of the dialogue written phonetically, to contrast the different societies. Yes, it could be said that the different versions of "English English" is epitomized by Pygmalion, but the literary lingual concepts far precedes it, and far surpass it. The accents often give a stereotypical image into the readers' mind. The phonetic writing could be used to insult the character, to make it more realistic, or to add flavor.
America, with its many accents, does have some literature that makes use of it. It's probably about as challenging for a British student, unfamiliar with American southerners' dialect to fully understand Mark Twain as it was for me to fully understand Dickens. However, for the most part, American books do not use this technique to the extent that the British do. We have books that use such techniques, but nowhere near the amount in England. It plays a part in their children's books as well. This is from Whizz for Atoms, by Geoffery Williams and Ronald Searle. I'm not putting sics in the quotes, but it is 100% from the book.
The craked tones of the skool bell summon all weeds and skolars to xsemble in big skool. This is most unusual just before brake and in the middle of lessons. 'Wot can it mean ask grabber.
'It mean,' sa molesworth 2 litely, 'that 99 sparrows hav fallen from their nest in the bell, the masters are interupted doing their foopball pools the skool dog will eat buns and - and -"
'Yes? Yes?'
'It means that thou, o weedy clot, are the biggest wet of them all.'
With this riposte molesworth 2 ignite the fuse and zoom vertically up in rocket flite to safety as HEADMASTER enter. Silence you can hear a pin drop...."i
This is from one book in a series by the same authors, all with Molesworth II, as the main character. The books do seem to be a cross between Calvin and Hobbes and "Flowers for Algernon," but, rest assured the whole set of books have every word written like the supplied quote, and these books are written for children.
Wha 'iss means izzat puhaps 'e Bwi'ish kiz aw mo' ca'able of undersa'in the wri'in of the speech ma'erisms arou em. Maybe, maybe not, but as far as I am aware, most if not all American youths would not be able to understand this type of book. The Hardy Boys and The Baby Sitters' Club, or Judy Blume are written in clear "English." Quite a few American children's books have the intentionally narrated spelling mistake, as Whizz does, but they are, to my experience, confined to a small handwritten letter that rarely exceeds a page. Whizz's series are supposedly entirely written by Molesworth, and go on for a little more than one hundred pages each, and do not let up.
Just every different American subculture has tried writing with their own twist on the language to be used for dialogue. Chopin's The Awakening, and others, have their dialogue in the Cajun English, The Joy Luck Club, Woman Warrior among other contemporary books show the Chinese-American culture, and as we have talked about in class, there are plenty of books from the Jewish-American group.
The American dialect that has gotten the most press is however Black English. Oakland, two years ago, was not the first time that people tried to legitimate Ebonics. Writers have tried. In the Eighties, Walker, and Austin Clarke (he, albeit contributing to Canadian literature) strengthened the dialect's writings. The seventies had Alex Haley, we can go farther back to Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry. You could go to the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. Some could say you could go as far back as Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Shee, why not? If dat be da case den I ken write as I damn well please. Shor, I be a honky, but it don't need make no difference. If ebody swallowed up da art of dose brothas and sistas above, then there ain't be no reason why I can't write like dis all wit all dese fuckups in grammer and spelling an swearin an yall be chillin wit it. You don't need to be no nigger to write o speak in da brothas language. It all nature versus nurture. Enny oreo o black mufucka who done grown up in Whiteyland will speak like one of dem sonsabitches. Enny whitey mofo or wigga from da hood kin gon an talk da talk. K mebbe I ain't been raised in da ghetto, but dat's where I gone to school. I be listenin to rap an funk. I be up wit damn near da whole fuckin lot. I be homies wit brothas. I ken write as I please, shee, give me one fuckin reason why a Jewboy can't be writin as if he be born in Harlem? Dere ain't no fuckin reason, da whole thing be dope and cool, an you should jes chill and be down wit it all an yo ass should be dissin someother sonofabitch.
On the contrary, I hope that that offended you. Rereading it, it bothers me, and it rather hurt to write. I think I managed to include every idiom used by whites who are trying to impersonate blacks, excluding any mentions of gangs, conspiracies, or the word "fly." But, by writing in that manner, I might as well be a golliwog or in blackface.
Therefore, many people, I included, do not feel that the works of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin), or William Styron (The Confessions of Nat Turner ), with their mimicking of African American speech (or slave speech, as in the case with both books), do not fit alongside the works of Walker, Clarke, Haley, Hughes, Hansberry, etc. Before my alter ego has a chance to question why that is the case, let's go ahead and answer it.
It's racism. It's exactly like if you're not black, you should not say "nigger," If you're not Jewish (or Japanese) you shouldn't say "Jap," if you're not Chinese you shouldn't say "chink," and if you shouldn't say "white trash" unless you consider yourself a part of it. The same thing goes with jokes. There's only one grouping that I can find that all but one of us told, so I offer this example:
If an American says it, he is being self-deprecating, then it's acceptable. When however, you are in the situation that I was in when I heard it, a bunch of Europeans and me, it's insulting. A group can tell a Truly Tasteless Joke among its own members without much worry, but if an outsider tells a joke that demeans the group he is not a part of, it is offensive.
It's the same way with writing. By writing in a matter that shows the cultures' "different language," it shows self-deprecation, by showing the lack of education on behalf of the various characters of his culture, or an acceptance of his culture, an attempt to legitimate it.
Therefore, when a guy writes in such a manner, there is either pure deprecation of this other social group, i.e. racism, or an attempt to give validity to this other group. In effect however, by doing this, this alien writer is saying that he is better at depicting the people than the people themselves. His feelings would better be shown were he part of this group, and he feels that he could write about these feelings better than somebody in the group. Therefore when I write a mimic of a dog barking, since the dog cannot describe to a human audience his bark in writing, I am not considered in the wrong. It is not in the same league as a white man writing on his ways as a Native American.
There is another reason why somebody would imitate quotes, and that is to aim for realism. If all of the characters spoke in accents, because�that's the way these people speak, then fine, that's how English literature works.
But, lines are very easily crossed. Certainly the old Broadway coon songs, where a white actor would wear black face, act in slower motions to imitate a lazy attitude and sing in Black English, would be racist, especially if you heard the lyrics. Certainly Jerry Lewis or Al D'mato's Japanese acts of squinting, and speaking without the letter "r" to mock Japanese Americans is racist. But, does an Englishman have reason to be angered by my early mimic?
Certainly.
The imitation of the Cockney accent served no purpose there but for ridicule. It was written as a joke, but jokes can be racist. The authors of Whizz , who presumably are around kids who speak like that, or were kids who spoke like that, can mimic themselves, as I've said many times, but I have no authority to.
Theonlywaysomebodycanwriteina"phoneticway"withoutitattackingsomebodyelse is for the author tomimicthewaythatheorshe speaks. Clearlywritingthespeechofanethnicityoranysocialdifferenceis no different thananyotherpotentiallyracistaction. Iwouldprobablynotbequitesothrilledtosee somebody write aboutme,ortoquoteme,ortomimicmeat anothertimewheretheywouldwriteinaspacelessmanner. It'sonethingtodiscussyourselforyourgroup; it's quite another to make fun of others' mannerisms.