Irritating accents
This morning while gulping down my coffee, this article in Politiken grabbed my attention.
Copenhagen University asked 232 Danes to evaluate 16 people’s personalities based solely on the way they pronounced the text from a Danish tv ad. The 16 people came from eight countries, with a man and woman from each.
The outcome of the evaluation is that many Danes get irritated when they hear Danish spoken with an accent. It seems they get really irritated if Danish is spoken with a Middle Eastern accent.
If you happen to speak Danish with a Germanic clang then you’re not doing too badly as you’re seen as being independent, ambitious, effective, interesting, reliable, gifted, and pleasant. But if you speak Danish with a Middle Eastern accent then you’re considered incompetent, indifferent, stupid, unreliable, unpleasant and irritating.
That’s a harsh call considering that all 16 people speak excellent Danish and are university educated.
Lighten up people! Isn’t there supposed to be unity in diversity?
July 25th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
An interesting find, Kathryn!
When I was studying Danish, I was struggling through a pronunciation exercise and my teacher came up to me and said, “The problem is you have an English accent.” I was shocked. I like my English accent. It says something about where I come from (not that it gets a positive response from Danes very often - it normally prompts a sad smile).
One of the few language skills that English speakers have is the ability to understand a foreign accent – due to the fact that we hear so many non-natives speaking English. But speakers of ’small’ languages like Danish have difficulty understanding anything other than ‘correct’ Danish. It’s a real shame, because often it makes us accented foreigners not want to bother.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
After 14 or so years of living in Denmark, I’ve learned to turn a blind eye to the looks I get from new people as I greet them in Danish.
I’ve been told I speak good Danish - mostly grammatically correct with good vocabulary. BUT - I ‘unfortunately’ have an accent that is typical of an English speaker. In non-professional environments, I feel more than anything that I am judged because of this. (Funnily enough, in work situations, it is not so much of an issue. I wonder why?)
No Londoner or New Yorker would be at all surprised at the sound of a non-native-English accent. It’s a natural part of everyday life - and many people view it as enriching.
Why should it be different in Denmark? Any ideas?