Tawking: Taylor Thomas

Taylor Thomas

            “Taylor, can you say ‘Can we have a talk after I drink a glass of water’?”

“Can we have a tawk after I drink ae gliass of wooder?”

My sister laughed at me. She looked out the window of the car. I do not mind that she thinks it is funny. I make fun of her accent as well. Her and I have very different backgrounds, even though we both grew up in the same area. She speaks very properly, because she goes to school in the suburbs. She is around people that “Speak with an outstanding vocabulary and superior pronunciation.” However, I grew up around people that speak with a South Philadelphia accent. I grew up around people who “Speek wit an ok vocabalary, and a Sou-Philly pronunciatian.”

            Casey was wearing an orange shirt that had yellow polka dots on it one day. I had gotten it for her.

“Do you like this shirt on me?” She asked.

 “Yeah Case, but tha poke-a dots don’t match tha piants.” I replied. She looked confused.

“Hello? Aure ya there?” I asked.

“What did you just say?” She asked. I repeated myself. She thought that I had said, “don’t poke the dots, don’t match the pains.” I can understand why that would make her confused. Since we have two different accents, it can get in the way of us having conversations sometimes.

            If Casey and I were to be in public together, people can tell that we are sisters when we aren’t talking, but once we both start to talk they are not so sure anymore. We both sound completely different. We only say a few words the same, if any at all. Some of the words are “Mom, Dad, and Straiten.” Our parents notice this as well.

I remember when we were little; Casey and I sounded more like each other. Before I reached fifth grade, we sounded identical. Ever since that year, it was never the same. During fifth grade, I would hang out with my cousin more and more. Today we are almost in separable.

I have a little bit less of a South Philadelphia accent then my cousin, so when Casey talks to our cousin, she has a blast asking her questions like, “Can you say ‘I have to go to Acme?” she would reply with “I gotta go ta tha Ack-a-mee”

Casey finds it so interesting that people can speak so much differently then she does. She is only in seventh grade and she hasn’t really been to places where people have accents. She grew up thinking that the way she spoke was the only way. She only saw people that spoke differently in movies and things.

When Casey was young, she met a man who had a very strong southern accent. She was baffled by how strong of an accent he had. He was a cashier for a grocery store. Casey had gone in with my mother to buy food. He was speaking to my mother and he said

“Good mo’nin ma’am. How ya doin on dis faun day?” Casey’s jaw dropped. She was confused.

“Sir, why are you talking funny?” she asked the man. My mother was very embarrassed at this point. She pulled Casey back and told her that was a very rude question. She did nokjt understand why so she repeated herself. The man laughed.

“Ahm from da souf. We talk lak dis down der.” He laughed.

Even though Casey and I live in the same house, we have completely different accents. We speak the same language but we merely sound different. In James Baldwin’s article, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” He notes “A Frenchman living in Paris speaks subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in Marseilles.” This shows that you can speak the same language and talk completely different. 

The way you speak and the vocabulary that you use has a big affect on your identity. Some people can tell where you are from and where you grew up by the way you speak. At times they are wrong though. Many people ask me if I am from South Philly. Most of the time I want to say yes, because I am there so often, yet I am from Roxoborough so I cannot say that.

There are many accents in my family today. Casey has a very proper accent, my older sister Devon is starting to get a North Carolinian accent because she just moved there. My mother has a half South Philly accent half proper accent, and my father has a little bit more a South Philly accent then my mom. Casey has gotten used to all of these accents almost but it’s still fun for her to ask one of us to say a phrase every once in a while.