Tuesday, August 11, 2009

So How Do Y'all Say "Y'all" Over There?

Over the vacation, we been hanging out with another expat family from New Zealand. Our kids are roughly the same ages and seem to like making to same amount of noise. With their three and our four, I'm grateful for their super high powered coffee maker. These kids got nothing on a mama with a caffeine high.

The first couple of times we were around them, I don't think The Princess or Mini-husband really noticed that their kids spoke English any differently than they did.It's only been this last week that my tribe realized that their tribe "says things funny." Of course this is coming from the two kids that have developed their own accents thanks to me, Hubster and the politically correct English characters on CeeBeebies. Spend a half and hour with them and tell me who speaks funny.

That being said, Mini-Husband and The Princess had the hardest time understanding our friend's daughter when she asked for some bread at lunch.

"Bried," Mini-Husband scoffed. "What's that?"

Cue conversation about how English is spoken in many places in the world (not just England!) and how each place lays on a different accent. Cue questions, once again, about why daddy and mommy sound different and, once again, who really is right with their pronunciation of "bouy."

Overall, the kids managed to fumble through the subtle differences and finally found a way to make this whole accent question simple.

They started speaking French.

After all, who really cares what side of the planet your from when you speak good, proper French, twinged with a tried and true Auvergnate accent.

4 comments:

magali said...

That's why I love your tribe !!!
French is obviously the way for all those funny English speakers to find a middle ground :-)))

hubster dave said...

boo-eeeeeee
boo-eeeeeee
boo-eeeeeee

or just simply buoy (with a silent U... maybe thats why the yanks cant get it... they never understood SILENT !!!)

god bless america
luv you all really !!!

Sue said...

When in France...

Stephanie said...

Imagine throwing a good Southern accent into the mix and you have Miss S these days. She speaks "Soutern American British English." I'd settle for French anyday!