Voices, Language, and Dialect
Voices, Language, and Dialect
I thought little about the voice of language or of dialect …
the millions of individual dialects
that identify with home and nurturing.
I had thought little of it, that is, until I returned
to Britain for a holiday after a twenty-six year absence.
The thought of a jet lagged induced nap sent us to bed when we arrived in London
in the middle of the day and after an all night flight from the West Coast, USA
I found myself on top of the bed,
in that luxury twilight zone, halfway between sleep
and wakeful consciousness.
It happened that day that there were a group of workman
outside our ground floor room,
and their voices carried--
It was music to my ears … this English English,
a far cry from the American English I had become accustomed to
during those twenty-six long years away.
The language and dialect heard that day
became the most remembered experience of my two week stay.
The dialects were London, Cockney, Liverpuddlian, Midland, and others.
Not yet the Welsh of my family upbringing -- that would come later.
The music of those mixed dialects, strong yet gentle British sounds,
stayed with me long after my holiday had faded into just one more of life's experiences.
What kind of man or woman cannot be moved by
the language and dialect of the land of his birth?
There is no sweeter music than that heard after so many years have passed.
Poetic nuances glided across the stage of my memory
as ballet dancers emerging from the wings of sound.
All this while I rested after a twelve hour flight.
I knew I had come home, if only for a short time.
Vi Jones
©April 3, 2005
posted by Vi Jones @ 9:42 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
This made me cry. They say there is no such thing as a "Mountain West American accent." They are wrong. Especially during the years I spent living on the East coast, I would sometimes hear a voice float from somewhere, just as you did, I would hear the solid, round 'R's, the way the words were held, not quite a drawl, but unhurried and leisurely amid the fast, clipped native tongue. And I would hear the Rocky Mountains in that voice. A stranger who had spoken to me without even knowing it. Spoken the word, 'home.'
Do you still have an accent yourself, Vi? I have wondered. I know a woman who has been in the United States forty years but still has the lilt of Ireland in every word.
Thank you, Vi, for sharing this lovely bit of truth.
Wales is it not Vi? I had a new experience recently for a widely travelled man could not place my voice and thought he should be able for he had lived in Canada, Australia, England, Europe and Africa. I had always thought that I had retained the voices of my Canadian places but then I recalled that my Canadian was a mix of Norfolk, Oxford, Scot, Ontario, American and West Coast...not too mention the years here in Oz. I wish we could all hear each other for the voice of the poet is all that the poet is and has been. Loved the poem, Fran
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