Language

At home we speak English but English definitely like no other. If I was to speak this English at work or school no one would understand. I call my home English “broken” English. For it is broken with many different other languages and dialects. When I call someone or being called upon my instinct reaction is not to say yes, ha, it is to say “gee”, English broken with urdu. Or writing the wrong spelling in class for colour. Or when being called upon to spell zebra, I say zed-e-b-r-a. And now to throw it even more off, during prayer we are not even supposed to speak in English but Arabic. I am surprised I don’t pull an Anzaladua and write in all three English, Urdu, and Arabic.

Guyanese American Arabic

Islamic school every Sunday was not fun. Especially, when you feel like an outsider in your own religion. Just because how you read Arabic is different from everyone else. I can’t roll my R’s it’s so difficult. In Sunday school in Guyana everyone sounded alike to me when they pray, but now I could tell there is a distinct different. I don’t know which way is correct or not?

So this Sunday, like every Sunday we have to recite, the suras that were assigned for us to memorize and I was chosen to read it. So now I have three different ways of speech to make sure I do not mix up

1.  Guyanese accent at home

T-shirt design for IOC

2.  American accent at work

3.  Arabic accent at school

Assimilation on the horizon

My interview went well for this job. Simple questions were asked as to my education and other activities. Guyana is 3^rd world in economics but definitely not in education. We don’t go to school from 7am till 6pm to learn nothing. After I passed the education check next came the personal questions. I had introduced myself as “Aleea, pronounced phonetically and she still had trouble saying it.” So I told her, the interviewer Jane Johnson, that she could just call me Ally for short. During the interview Jane asked me how old I was and I noted I was “twenteh-five” I suppose at that point she heard my “accent” with numbers.