Accent¡­ and the doors it can open

Por Edwige Ren¨¦e Dro (*)

Text in Spanish

I first learned that I had an accent when I went to university in England. I also learned that an accent was a bad thing to have. It was the way the question, ¡°Where is your accent from?¡± was asked, with pursed lips and a frown, as if this thing called ¡°accent¡± was grating on my interlocutors¡¯ ears. And I felt bad about it, even if I too wondered about their way of speaking, which was different from the way the white people ¨C the English people ¨C spoke. Yes, for the people who went to great length to point out my accent in such a way were my fellow black British students.

I¡¯m now older, so I will admit to it. I tried to acquire this black British accent especially as a deafening silence would fall and every eye would focus on me as soon as I opened my mouth. I¡¯m sure I saw ears stood to attention as well to catch every word. So yes, the acquisition of the right accent was a paramount affair. No point sounding like this; this was the aim, especially as other friends, other Africans like me could switch from this to this without a second¡¯s hesitation. Well, I never succeeded for this is how I sound. No black British accent there! By the way, I know there isn¡¯t something called a black British accent, let me hasten to add.

Of course, I¡¯m now glad I did not persevere with the accent change, and I¡¯m also glad for the confidence that comes with age for just a year before joining the great returnee movement, a friend of mine, an Ivorian who¡¯d self-styled himself as my older brother told me, ¡°Your grammar is great and your vocabulary is tremendous but the problem is your accent.¡±

¡°What¡¯s up with my accent?¡± I asked, even though I knew what he was about to say.

¡°You have an African accent.¡±

¡°And what is an African accent?¡± I further challenged him, even though with that sentence, he¡¯d enlightened me as to the provenance of his affected British? English? hybrid? accent? And also, I had to ask. Who knew? Perhaps while I had been going around thinking that Africa was a continent, it had become a country and the joke was on me. Who knew that a Moroccan sounded the same as a South Arican, hein?

¡°Well, you know,¡± self-styled older brother told me, ¡°when you speak, you sound like an African, and that puts you at a disadvantage.¡±

No shit! ¡°So what do you suggest?¡±

¡°Listen to videos of Americans speaking. That¡¯s what I did when I came to this country.¡±

Wow! So the affected accent was actually an American accent. Dear God, Africans have suffered. But I had reached my limit; I was no longer prepared to humour self-styled brother. I launched into a diatribe the only way a soon-to-be returnee could.

What the comment of self-styled brother confirmed to me however was that my decision to return was the best decision I had ever taken. Before I gave in to the self-hatred that the West had inflicted on self-styled brother, I would go back to Cote d¡¯Ivoire where I wouldn¡¯t be confronted with the question of accent. Pah!

Maybe someday, I will write an article called The delusions of an African returnee, but until then, let¡¯s talk about my journey back home and the many mentions of my accent. Since when did my people know about accent? I asked myself. I became everything but an Ivorian. I was a Congolese. A Cameroonian. A Nigerian. A Liberian. Even a Rwandan! The bank asked for my consular card to open my current account and upon me exclaiming that I was an Ivorian, the manager simply tilted his head and said, ¡°Ah bon?¡± In places where I had to show my passport, it was assumed that it was my father who was the Ivorian, if they didn¡¯t just think that it was my husband who was the Ivorian. In a taxi once, there was a passenger who jerked his head as soon as I gave my destination to the taxi driver before exclaiming, ¡°But you, you are not from here!¡±

Contrary to the inadequacy I felt whenever my accent was mentioned when I was still at university, this time, I decided to have myself some fun. Age will do that for you. I had realised that saying, ¡°Je suis Ivoirienne de p¨¨re et de m¨¨re eux-m¨ºmes n¨¦s de p¨¨res et de m¨¨res Ivoiriens¡± in reference to the Ivoirit¨¦ definition like I replied back to that passenger, made people clam up really quickly. And as a true returnee who was desperate for a conversation devoid of suspicion regarding the sad political crisis my country went through, showing off my knowledge, a thorough knowledge at that of the Ivoirit¨¦ concept wasn¡¯t going to get me anywhere. So I adopted a different strategy. Unless totally necessary, I let people assume and I asked questions. I offered alternative views. I wondered aloud about Gbagbo¡¯s legacy without being thought to be one of those people, ADO¡¯s people. I expressed sadness at the way President Gbagbo was paraded in front of the TV screens of the world without anyone deciding that I could only be but a pro-Gbagbo. I would mention that I was learning to speak Dioula (a language I speak very well by the way) without being asked if I was sure that I didn¡¯t have a soft spot for ADO, as our current president is called. Instead, I was simply viewed as a Benguiste, a returnee fascinated by a foreign country. Even when it was correctly guessed that I was an Ivorian, the suspicion that so pervades conversations pertaining to politics in my country does not apply to me, even if the straight-forwardness when it is assumed that I¡¯m a foreigner is tempered a little bit.

Comme quoi hein, having an accent, even if you are unaware of having one like me here, doesn¡¯t put you at a disadvantage. It actually opens doors, the doors of people¡¯s hearts. I¡¯m now wondering what to do with all that information¡­..

(*) Edwige Ren¨¦e Dro es marfile?a. Periodista, escritora, traductora, bloguera y pluma seleccionada por el proyecto Africa39 como uno de los 39 mejores escritores menores de 40 a?os en ?frica subsahariana. Dirige un club de lectura en Abiy¨¢n, centrado en literatura africana y denominado Abidjan Lit (Abiy¨¢n lee), y forma parte de incontables proyectos de creaci¨®n y difusi¨®n literaria panafricanos. Lo suyo es el 'writivism', una mezcla de escritura y activismo.