Languages

I love dialects. When we first moved here to Michigan, Joseph had seemed exceptionally fussy, so we called the doctor to set up an appointment to be safe. The lady who answered the phone said something like, "University of Michigan Haspital, how may I help you?"

Yep. Instead of the 'ah' sound she made the 'aah' sound. And the more I've listened to native Michiganders, the more I hear them replacing the 'ah' with the 'aah.' We live in Ann Aah-rbor, and Kevin is a great faah-ther, and so on and so on. And then they occasionally replace the 'aah' sound with the 'ay' sound, such as when 'bag' becomes 'bayg.'

And I love it. I love how my Canadian neighbor says "aboot" instead of "about." I love when people say that something "needs washed" instead of "needs to be washed" (that's not necessarily a dialect, but it is part of Pittsburgh English). Hearing people talk like this makes me not ashamed of my mild Utah twang. I can drop my 't's without shame (although that really isn't just a Utah thing, folks . . . more people would say moun'ain if more people lived near mountains since they would talk about them more).

Why do I bring all of this up tonight? Well, I'm learning French. Kind of. The touristy stuff that may help on the off chance that not enough people speak English there. I've already forgotten most of what I've learned in the past month, so it's probably a lost cause. My main goal was to at least know how to pronounce things there. And I figured that since I love dialects and nuances so much, French pronunciation would come easily.

But then my mom helped me a little bit and corrected vowel after vowel after vowel, and I realized that I don't have French pronunciation down like I thought I did. And since the library book and CDs are due tomorrow, I'm just kind of doomed.

At least I can appreciate French pronunciation. That ought to count for something.