Wherever I travel, when I open my mouth everybody knows I'm American.
But in Germany they assumed that "my ancestors were German" and in Ireland I was assumed to be an O'Day... English assumed my ancestors were English, which was partly right. All those assumptions had some bit of validity...
Funny thing about my accent, many people can’t figure it out. Since I speak a few languages pretty well and rather regularly, my accent (s) got influenced by other languages… For example, I speak Spanish with the lisp. This means I learned Spanish in Spain. But because I use my Spanish in other Spanish speaking countries most of my life other than Spain, people in Spain get confused when I speak it, especially in the Islands…
Few years back when I was visiting Spain, several Brits were following us around trying to figure out where my English accent was from. They were surprised that we came from Canada because apparently not many Canadians visit that region…
No matter what one believes, evolution or creation, we all come from the same ancestor… Some call the ancestor “The Mitochondrial Eve”, but others just Eve :-)
A lot of Germans ask me if I’m German….
Wherever I travel, when I open my mouth everybody knows I'm American.
But in Germany they assumed that "my ancestors were German" and in Ireland I was assumed to be an O'Day... English assumed my ancestors were English, which was partly right. All those assumptions had some bit of validity...
Funny thing about my accent, many people can’t figure it out. Since I speak a few languages pretty well and rather regularly, my accent (s) got influenced by other languages… For example, I speak Spanish with the lisp. This means I learned Spanish in Spain. But because I use my Spanish in other Spanish speaking countries most of my life other than Spain, people in Spain get confused when I speak it, especially in the Islands…
Few years back when I was visiting Spain, several Brits were following us around trying to figure out where my English accent was from. They were surprised that we came from Canada because apparently not many Canadians visit that region…
A mongrel-new-world-polyglot!
;-D
This is what immigration forces one to do: learn the local language to survive… or not… lol
I grew up on military bases during Vietnam and went to high school in rural Texas and Yokohama, Japan.
;-)
My accent is clearly "American", but can't be placed any more specifically than that.
No matter what one believes, evolution or creation, we all come from the same ancestor… Some call the ancestor “The Mitochondrial Eve”, but others just Eve :-)