Myrtle Claus
'You're not Italian, are you? Where are you from?' She asks me very kindly, gently even, as if she's frightened by her request to end our conversation.
We've been talking for a while, this elderly lady and I. It started with her comment about how long it will be before it's our turn. Then we talked about the nice weather for the time of year, despite the downpour last week.
Then we talked about the other little things that people all over the world conjure up to have a conversation with a stranger. And then, in a moment of silence, she looks at me hesitantly and asks the question that had visibly haunted her for a while.
'Oh, Netherlands! I thought of hearing your accent that you were from France.' She now looks at me with a big smile, relieved that I'm not offended by her audacity. And after assuring me that I already speak Italian quite well, we kill the rest of the waiting time with stories about her week in the Netherlands, somewhere in the late 70s.
An accent is forever
My accent. It's something I'll never get rid of in my life. Because no matter how hard I try to mimic the Italian sounds around me, it always seeps in somewhere. A vowel that sounds more Dutch than intended. My 'throat-r' that doesn't roll out of my mouth nearly as beautifully as most Italians' enviable tongue tip-r. And which will probably ensure that even in the retirement home I will still be put away as a Frenchwoman.
I've resigned myself to it after all these years. Just as I take into account that as a gray-curled lady I still get compliments because I already 'speak pretty good Italian'. I will completely keep to myself how long I have lived here. You do not want to offend your conversation partner at that moment after such a positively intended statement.
Frustrations in certain situations
But sometimes I loathe the fact that my 'r' isn't just a little bit more Italian. Because having an accent can have its drawbacks. In situations where the people you speak to are not so open to people who are not from Italy, for example. Squinting at you because you must have come to their homeland to catch a ray of sunshine, or maybe even two.
Or who think that the extent to which your accent can be heard is related to your mental abilities. You are not taken for granted because you cannot hear the difference between the single and double consonants spoken by you. Therefore treating you from on high and convinced that they are right anyway. Even if it isn't. And when they finally see it too, they pretend not to understand you because of the way you pronounce Italian.
Frustrating situations in which the boiling blood in your veins amplifies that accent even further, resulting in that famous vicious circle.
Positive reactions to my accent
But in 99% of the cases my Italian pronunciation with a Dutch touch fortunately elicits positive reactions. During a conversation, I see a small question mark appear on the face of the person I'm talking to as they try to match my accent to a country. With the question that is almost inevitably asked afterwards: where are you from?
Like the older lady I'm in the waiting room with. Fortunately, her enthusiastic response to my answer that I am from the Netherlands is almost standard. Just like the rest of the conversation, because not too long ago a brother or sister, an aunt or uncle, the neighbor or maybe even herself stayed in the Netherlands for a while. And I make a note in my mind that I really should visit the tourist attractions mentioned, just as standard, to know exactly what they are talking about.
As a foreign tourist in the Netherlands. But one without an accent.
Photo clogs: OXLAEY.com (Flickr)
Comments