Accents Bring All the Girls to the Yard

I so want to get Ryan a kilt in his clan's tartan colors.

I don't know about you, but accents make me melt.  Languages are beautiful to me and with a lilting accent, boy howdy, I'm putty in your hands.  I've recently started reading a book series by Diana Gabaldon called Outlander.

The series is about a nurse, Claire, who has just finished her tour in Europe during WWII.  She is reunited with her husband after they've been separated for the majority of the war.  While he researches in Scotland, she comes across a stone formation that transports her back in time where she runs into a multitude of characters, including the families of the MacKenzie and Fraser clans.  It's a historical romance, but don't let the stereotypes of cheesy romance novels dissuade you from checking this out.  The storyline is really good and Claire is a really strong female character.  I'm super picky about female characters.  They tend to be annoying or super dependent on a male protagonist and it pisses me off.  Claire however is strong-willed, independent, and in the 1700s it gets her in a lot of trouble.  Nevertheless the character of Jamie Fraser guides her in the right direction plus in terms of character crushes, hands down, he wins.

Source via Outlander Fan

The series was recommended to me by my friend Lindsey and the fan following is crazy.  Right now the author, Gabaldon, is holding a read-a-thon in preparation for her 2014 release of the eighth book in the series.  What's extra awesome is that Starz is making a tv-series that will also be premiered in 2014 with Sam Heughan as the actor for Jamie. #bestillmyheart

 

He is from Scotland, has a Scottish accent, and is super cute. It's one of those #mancrushmonday moments where I wish my husband actually had a Scottish accent.  Ryan's family is also Irish and German so I'd take any of those as well ;)

However, the series did get me interested in Ryan's Scottish heritage (the series is incredibly interesting).  So I did some investigating, which ultimately made my husband laugh periodically throughout the day with my sudden outbursts of trivia bits. 

  

First off the first known person of the name Erskine was Henry Erskine who was also the owner of the Barony of Erskine.  I love the name Henry and I think this is destiny-esque but then again I think a lot of things are predetermined destiny.  In modern Scottish Gaelic, the name is spelt Arascain.   

That just makes you want to say it and I've been repeating it for the past 24-hours. 

Just saying it gives you a slight Scottish lilt.  

The family's crest is shown above as well as the tartan colors. The clan's motto is Decori decus addit avito (He adds honour to that of his ancestors).  It sounds so badass...I love it! The flower is the red rose (my middle name is Rose) and the motto on the crest is Je Pense Plus, meaning I think more. I'm not sure why there's two, maybe someone can explain this to me?  I might just be overly nerdy about all of this, but I just love it.  As much as I know about Filipino culture, I don't know much about my Irish culture and now I'm part of Ryan's family which includes a German and Scottish heritage.  There's still a lot more I need to learn but I'm utterly fascinated.

If you have any books on Scottish or Irish history, culture, or folklore, I would love the recommendations!

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Reinforcing Stereotypes: Nail Salon Skit by Anjelah Johnson

I get disappointed when I see comedians take this approach with their stand-up acts because instead of focusing on a particular situation, her kickstand to the entire skit is imitating a Vietnamese accent.

I can appreciate jokes about certain aspects of Asian culture, for example, within Filipino culture we love karaoke and line dancing.  We bring an enormous amount of food to every event and we have certain personality quirks.  

Anjelah Johnson, who is Mexican-Native American, could have done the nail salon jokes, with the same impact of hilarity without incorporating her take on the interpretation of attempting a second language.  I've seen her other skits and she'll poke fun at Mexican-American or Latino culture, but it was definitely a different style than when she talked about her trips to her local nail salon.  It would have been nice to see the same amount of courtesy given to another ethnic group without amplifying another stereotype.  Her "normal" dialect was used without bringing in some cheap, stereotypical version.

Being Filipino, both my mom and I learned English as a second language.  Growing up in the states, I adapted to English very quickly over Tagalog.  My mom occasionally gets an accent, but her English is otherwise flawless.  She has my brother and I look over letters, e-mails, text messages and Facebook posts to insure that her English is without spelling or grammatical mistakes.  

I even do the same for my own work.

 I've also experienced people "not understanding" what she's saying,

and let me tell you that I was highly critical of our speech impediments growing up.  People become rude, tactless and just vile when they can't "understand" someone.

One of my most recent experiences was a college Christian conference where the guest speaker chose to imitate the language of the Filipino natives that he was "helping" on his mission trip.

I have several opinions on mission trips to help "others" but that's for another blog post.

I had never felt more humiliated or degraded in my life and here was a guy up on stage thinking that he was hilarious because of his imitation of something that he deemed as "other."

Here are some of the YouTube comments that caught my attention:

 Her comedy act doesn't actually become humorous until much later in the skit.  The offensive aspect isn't the jokes, it's that she relies on grammatical mishaps from learning English as a second language.  An entire skit shouldn't play on someone learning English, especially since more often than not, I hear, "Well everyone should just learn English."

 Twisting business sense, such as providing customer service and incorporating products into the actual service, is not a unique technique solely found at Asian nail salons- that's just general business.  I personally don't understand how you can just say, "yes" to something if you actually did not understand what they were saying.  

If you didn't understand something in life, would you just pay for it anyways? 

No, that would be called stupidity.

I also appreciate the comment about coming up with a different language and then offering "Mexican" as the option.  No dear, that would be called Spanish and that's been around for quite awhile.  Ya know conquistadors and all that.

  

 

 Love this comment because this type of retort is often what I hear when I bring up any type of blatant ignorance.  A stereotype is a negative connotation, so saying that there will always be an exception is kind of limiting the scope here.  Anjelah, as a woman of color, could come up with vast amounts of material that has nothing to do with other women of color.  Instead she focuses on them because focusing on anything else = "people would find them difficult to relate to."  

In terms of "people," I'm going to assume that's a reference to anyone who is not Vietnamese or Asian or even a person of color.  

When did anyone with those ethnicities become something other than "people"? 

To be blatantly honest, I shouldn't have to explain or make my experience "easier to relate" to other people and I certainly am not about to belittle it by reinforcing stereotypes.

I can appreciate jokes about being Filipino- but this comedy act was just bad 

and had only a few jokes of actual comedic value.  What's a shame is that people are confusing humor with that which is considered "different."

P.S. I found this on one of my favorite blogs with comments from the blogger 

phonetically expressing her nail artist's accent