Language Autobiography

Nathan Giello

Did you ever notice that the way you speak changes with you current environment, I mean it happens all the time.  Like when I home with my mom or something I will enunciate my words more, and censor what say, but when I'm with my friends I’m a totally different person, I curse, use slang, and just have a different tone in my voice. Which leave me wondering which one am truly I? The version at home, or the version with my friends?

I was with friends the other day on south street, we went to Jims Steaks, and did some shopping We were walking down the street to sneaker store, and I saw a pair of sneakers in the window, and I turned to my friends and said “yo look at dees, they mad fresh.”, so later that night when I went online to show my mom the shoes I said “Look at these, I think they are really cool.” But then I laughed, I caught my self, I saw then my change in vernacular. It was amazing to see that I could do that, and not even recognize it. It’s kind of like art, the way you don’t really realize that you’re a good artist until some one says they like your doodle in your notebook.

So then after I realized this, I started to think back to previous conversations that I could remember to see if I was code switching, and it astonished me to find that I’ve been doing this since fourth grade, which is when I started to really begin to develop my vernacular, and I really started to create my self.  The thought of a 10 year old me sitting in the lunchroom, using new words to create my self without even knowing it.

I remember sitting in the lunch room at W.M.Meredith elementary school, which smelled like burnt cheese and Windex, talking to a large headed kid, and being looked at like I was insane, and going home and trying to figure out why he was looking at me like that, was it my cloths, my hair, or I smell funny? It was eating away at me, so the next day I asked him “ Why do you look at me like I’m insane when I talk to you?” he replied with a smirk “ Why you speak lyka white boy?”. That was it I sounded white, not that there is anything wrong with the way white people speak, but non-the less it was weird.  The next day I came into school speaking totally different.

I walked in the next day and started a conversation with the same kid:

“Yo Reef, whats up bro?”

“Sup new boy?”

“nuffin chillin, what bout u?”

“hahahaha!”

“what the hell you laughin at?”

“You young boy, why you talkin like dat?”

“This how I normally talk, I just talked like a white person because….”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see if I could do it”

“Oh ight”

After that I got invited to do things with the kids at school, I had new friends, and eventually was one of the guys. That conversation had changed everything, I never again spoke the same way in the two parts of my life, there was a home langue, and a school langue. I still slipped up every once in a while, but never for long, actually most of the time I would be able to play it off. And the best part was that, this was just the beginning as I got older everything got smoother.

When I was in eighth grade I felt I would begin to reinvent myself for high school, I changed everything, the way I dressed, the way I acted, the way thought, and the way my speech got more intercut, I figured a way to use less brain power when switching langue, by slowly merging them into one. Yes they still had their differences, but the base of speech was the same. Conversations were so different, like the time I was on the way to a party with my friend, my mom gave us a ride:

“yo so did we have to wear dress cloths?”

“Naw I don’t think so dude”

“ Well the invitation didn’t say that you had to, so I would think not.”

“Oh ok, its cool.”

The conversations were just different, I wouldn’t have used “yo”, or “cool” with my mom in the car before, I but if I was just with friends I wouldn’t have used words like,  “have”, or “wear”, I wouldn’t have even said anything like that in the past. But that’s not the end of my evolving.

In late ninth to now, everything has just been different, I decided that the integrated langue wasn’t the best, so I went back to using two separate langue’s, but now I was able to switch them without thinking about it, I could be talking on the phone with a friend walking to my house, hang up when I open the door, and have a totally different persona. Like the other day I was talking to my friend Chris walking home, and stepping into the house still on the phone, and just automatically just changed the word:

“Yeah brov, she kept dickeatin so Ah hadda cut her loose”

“Yeah Ah gotchu, she always all up on you”

“Right? But what bout your shawty perediciment?”

“Ah don’t even f***in know brov, sometimes she all good then other time she jus make me wanna scream!”

“Ah I gotchu, but what bout da other gurl? Was goin on wit dat?”

“She really tryin to talk and she bad as shit, but I don’t even know what tuhdo”

“Ight Ah gotchu, (walking into the door) but like, what do you think your going to do?”

“You home?

“Yeah how did you know?”

“ Jus text brov, ard?”

“Yeah alright”

But that’s what I mean everything changes.  Through out the course of life your langue changes.  I am no longer wondering which version am truly I? The home version? Or the friends’ version? And I realize that they are both me, they are both sides of who I am, and who I always will be.