Park The Car In Harvard Yard Blog #10

I just had some food for thought for the class to consider being the nerdy English education kid that I am. So, when people say or imply to an ethnic group something like you’re in America, speak English, this is completely inferring ignorance on that person part. It is ignorance because there is no such thing as a Standard English language at all. There are things like English dialects, but there is no right way to speak English. There is a thing as Standard Written English, but speech is a completely different thing. For instance, someone from Boston would say “car” completely different than someone from say Alabama; who is right? Neither person is right or wrong in saying “car” the way they do, in this case the two individuals are imploring two of the various dialects within America. Another thing to consider is the fact of accents. If someone from Britain speaks, we who live in America, who think we speak “Standard English,” can still understand someone who speaks with the accent; therefore this is another instance that proves there is no such thing as speaking proper English. Another thing to consider is how we perceive the dialects. It’s a fact generally speaking that just like someone from Alabama feels a Hispanic is stupid for speaking Spanish or English with an accent, people from the Northern part of America feel there is a lack of intelligent connected with a southern Alabama accent. It really is a vicious cycle to say that people need to speak “English.” We are a country based on multiple dialects and languages. Unless we are of Indian decent, we all are products of immigrants and like I said in my previous blog, the country didn’t declare English as “The Official Language” until after it was establish as the united states.