Yankee Can Change Person
First let me apologise for not blogging in the past week. I was in America and I was too busy taking advantage of my dad's generosity. However something interesting did happen to me. I called these two people who were my very good friends back in Naija. I like looking for insult that's my problem. This was our conversation:
Me : Hello good evening. Please can I speak to ........... (pronounced Igbo name properly)
Friend 1 (F1) : Who is speaking (in a mixture between an American accent and an Igbo accent)
Me : Chibundu
F1 : What?! Chibududu
At this point I got annoyed.
Me (irately): Chibundu (with all the Igbo nuances and stresses placed correctly)
Friend 1 then desecrated my name twice before saying, 'Oh Chibundu I remember you, my home girl."
Me (quite shocked at the accent change, they've not been there for up to a year) : Abeg speak in your normal accent jo, what's all this.
Can you imagine what he said next,
F1 : I'll try.
I'LL TRY.
See this conk Naija guy telling me he will try to speak in his natural voice. He didn't try very hard because he was soon talking in that irritating voice again. The annoying thing was that when he was trying he now started speaking in this slow retarder voice. I thought it would fare better with his sister.
Me : Give the phone to your sister.
F2 : Hey girl!
Me (slightly taken aback at her own accent too) : Wassup now, how's school?
F2 : I'm good men. This school is just to.......................................................................... (here she proceeded to go of in a string of ebonics that were unintelligble to me)
Imagine ebonics spoken with a slight tinge of a naija accent. Then you get my problem. I honestly couldn't understand the babe so I decided to end the conversation. I told them bye.
The funny thing though is that a month ago I talked to these people and their accents were perfectly normal. Now they are telling me, "This is how I talk now" after not up to a year. Na wa o. Maybe it's peer pressure. Me I don't understand this kind of thing sha.
posted by chibs @ 1:39 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Waoh!!!! Yipppppeeeee!!!! Chibs Welcome Back!! We all missed you!! Was wondering what had happened to you girl. Thanks for stopping by my page.
LOL at ur friends changing their accent in less than a year. O di kwa very necessary. (smile)
lol! I guess u dont understand how their accents could change so quickly cos your's is so thick, eh? ah well, get used to it, some people just have to have 'fune' by force.
btw I think its actually been more like a YEAR since you last blogged!
LOL! Nice post.
lol men that happens oh. even here in 9j, people that havent smelled airport breeze fake 'fone'. its SO irritating. cool post- i'll be back!
LOL....You sef...you are wicked. Sorry that I did not call back. I was busy practising my fone for our next conversation(grin)
lmao.. thats just too funny... u never watch naija movies? genevieve and ramsey are not british ppl .. so imagine person self when live for america... honest truth..for me it was the easiest thing for me to pick up a canadian accent but trust me wheneva i meet anybody who's naija i talk 2 them like say i just drop from airport yesterday even tho i've been here 4 yearz.. but we used the 'fonai' to conversate with white ppl.. but trust me i goof around a lot self... all my friends think i'm nuts when i speak pidgin english with my boyfriend who is jamaican and even my chinese housemates.. which one concern me jare?
this happens all the time sha.. esp with ppl dat just travelled cos they wanna adapt asap(make train no leave em).. even my naija housemate just came here a few months and is always speaking like margaret thatcher.. no b small.. i'm speaking broken english(and he lived his whole life in LAGOS and he ALWAYS SPEAKS PROPER ENGLISH WITH FONETICS>> IMAGINE!!!)
I am finding this seriously funny - Like I cant control myself type of funny - my friends and I back in the day when we used to just cus out people call these people amerablam - LOL - NIce funny post by the way.
no be their fault. na the cold dey worry their brain. abeg no vex for them three much. but if u need help putting them back on track let me know. i'll volunteer my time and mouth to talk serious pidgin into their brains, they'll think they are in warri.
lol...nice one
LOL..thanks for keeping it real. I don't get that mess either?
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ive been here 10 yrs and trust me u dont lose ur accent like dat jo, perhaps peer pressure sha, nonsense
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