I heard the other day that a mother was inquiring at the school about who her daughter's foreign English teacher would be. She didn't care who the teacher was as long as the fortunate recipient of her daughter's young mind was not South African. She further stated that if the teacher was a South African then she would not enroll her angel at the school. When pressed further about this condition, she said that she wanted a Canadian or American teacher, because she wanted her little darling to "have the best accent".

Now, for a person who is unable to distinguish between English accents, who has to ask if I am American or South African when I speak to her, this is quite a bold claim. Nay, indeed, an ignorant claim. She demonstrates not that my accent is not the best, but just how stupid she is. How is it possible to say one accent is better than another if you are not actually able to hear the differences between them?

A reason sometimes given for students wanting to learn American English is so that they can speak to Americans. Does that mean that I am unable to speak to an American? A result of this attempt to speak "American" is a whole bunch of Taiwanese seemingly parodying American-English in a twangy, unnatural and, consequently, ghastly mispronunciation of English that has others, both Taiwanese and foreign, mocking them.

English is a language that is particularly accommodating of other accents. It has to be because it is spoken on every continent, including Antarctica. English has become a language of Something-English - British-English, American-English, African-English, Asian-English, Australian-English, Hispanic-English - as is bound to happen to a language that becomes truly global. Chinese accented English is no less acceptable or understandable than any other version of the language and it is far, far better than Chinese-American-English!

I have been told before, in Taiwan and in South Africa, that I have a British accent. In London an Asian-English flea market stall keeper immediately identified me as a South African. Fortunately, I have never been misidentified as an American.

5 July 2002

Dion Marc Delport

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