Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents

In this wide-ranging account, linguist Fridland (Like, Literally, Dude) surveys cutting-edge sociological, psychological, and historical explanations for why accents exist and what effects they have on society. As she touches on everything from the spread and evolution of Indo-European languages to U.S. accents influenced by the Great Migration, she repeatedly probes at the role that accents play in race and class, from the way that workplace advancement is hindered or helped by accents to the concept of the shibboleth, a “mispronunciation” that reveals someone as an outsider—an idea presented in the Old Testament but put into practice as relatively recently as the mid-20th century, when Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo’s militias sought out Haitian Creole speakers to execute by forcing people to pronounce the Spanish word for parsley. She notes that linguists have shown that accents develop naturally, along fairly robust and definable paths, as groups of people drift away from one another socially; she also explores how, as children acquire language, the mental process is deeply linked to categorization, which can include categorizing the types of people speaking. In short, she argues, accent and sociality are deeply intertwined, and addressing things like social inequality will always require people to think about what they think about how other people speak. Fast-paced and cheerily written despite sometimes heavy subject matter, this is a delightfully easygoing linguistic romp. (Apr.)