Mindy Kaling, who writes for and acts on the NBC show The Office, recently revealed to David Letterman a secret that many Indian Americans guard very closely. Not all of us are good at imitating an Indian accent just because our parents are Indian [via Defamer]:
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That’s right, we may not do Indian accents well…but no other ethnic group should be able to point that out without an indignant tongue-lashing back 
If you want to skip the rest of the interview then start at 1:30 min mark. I can really sympathize with Mindy. When I try to do an Indian accent I sound slightly Scottish. Its just sad.
i am always mystified when the amreekan s.o, on the drive home from some desi party, will ask about some new face – “Who was that new guy? The guy without an accent?” And i am never sure who the s.o is referring to 🙂
Mindy Kaling, a.k.a. ??? Chokalingam
it’s like living a double life!
“Ostensibly” ?? the contempt shows through…. The bishop spoke english albeit with a Mallu accent. Wrote the comment earlier – probably got deleted 😉
Totally agree that this is a second-gen American blog and does not claim to representative of all South Asian Americans – only second gens. Of course, DBDs are welcome but really DBDs are not the target market (nor are European desis or Australians for that matter). Am not being sarcastic.
Ostensibly: apparently: from appearances alone;
Drop it, please. You’re reading contempt which isn’t there and derailing the thread, that’s why your comment was deleted.
38 · hurt said
i can see why you and your buddies may feel that you don’t have much in common with ABDs, but can you elaborate as to why you don’t have anything in common with the earlier wave of immigrants?
As an ABD who also lived in India, it is easy for me to navigate both accents. The key thing is to realize is not all Indian accents are the same. If you have trouble with the Apu accent because it comes across as too cartoonish, try the lighter Indian accent that is easier. There is the nasal accent you can find in the south. I notice a thicker accent in the north. Or just use a neutral accent and sprinkle in words like “yaaar” , “aarrrrey”, “you like it , no” stuff like that. That will get you into the groove of an Indian accent.
I totally have a girl crush on Minds
27 · Harbeer said
LOL….
Wish this discussion was more Mindy and less accents. Really liked her, liked Dave for giving her to us.
42 · Swati said
A Dravidian language which has a huge percentage of Sanskrit vocab.
42 · Swati said
Forgot to mention, a Malayalee/Malayali is a person who speaks Malayalam. The dravidian language is MalayalAM, y’all…not Malayali. 🙂
Word. Or athey. However you spell that. 😀
52 · so what’s her real name said
Relax mr/madame desi pride. the woman singlehandedly introduced like 50 million households in the united states to diwalllli. more than any amar chitra katha show and tells since the history of mankind have ever done.
I meant Sikkim, etc. re: eastern part of India
Since “Desh” word is very much used by Bengalis.
Hint: Bangladesh.
Love Mindy Kaling. Love. Her.
On accents — I actually think the back and forth on accents is really interesting. I think part of it has to do with what we think of as a “typical” desi accent (of course, no such thing exists). Neither of my parents speaks with a “typical” desi accent; my mom speaks with a distinct midwestern (Great Lakes) accent, and my dad with something between a Wisconsin and British-Indian English accent (which is slightly different, imo, from the RP accent). The place I hear it the most is in the dropping of articles, especially “the.”
What’s harder for me to replicate, though are the embarrassing and awful American accents my cousins and I have when we try to speak Punjabi. I have fully given up on at least 5 different letters in the alphabet that seem beyond my reach (an unaspirated c? a reflexive n? what??). Ironically, I cringe when I hear poorly pronounced (read: Umreekan/Brit) Punjabi — I can’t even listen to Aashqui without wanting to scream.
I have a great (and truly ludicrous) high school Indian vs. Indian accent story, but will save it for another comment. 🙂
63 · Kush Tandon said
sure, desh is a hindi word that means country. that wasn’t the point being contested though. apart from manoj kumar though, it is hardly used in everyday parlance in the sense it is in the united states.
I have a total crush on her … although she seems to be dating someone :(, Like I ever had a shot 🙂 nice interview in Radar Magazine too.
From the interview:
i don’t understand why people in both north america and in india make such a fuss over accents. i’m desi from london and whenever i visit these 2 places people are always going on about my english accent. one uncle in india always tries to copy me which drives me nuts. i much prefer the US to canada though. people there are much more likely to take my accent in their stride and they might comment on it once but then they forget about it. in canada, people are so overwhelmed by anything english and they keep going on all day about how they love my accent. india and america have a lot in common, the way the country is divided into states, most people are very friendly and chatty in both countries. other countries don’t make such a fuss over accents.
49 · Kush Tandon said
in penninsular india, “desh” is often used to refer to the interior plateau as opposed the the coastal littoral “konkan”…this is more common in maharashtra…”desh” as a word meaning country exists in kannada and telugu, in fact some of the ancient names of these regions are Kuntala desh and andhra desh…it does however compete with the dravidian “Nadu” and its cognates…add to the fact that there is enough a considerable residue of Dakhni language all over the plateau since the days it was a lingua franca, we can safely say that desi/deshi are not alien terms here.
55 · Johnny Valker said
Not liking someone is different from not having anything in common with them…i think the overwhelming majority of DBDs have more in common with ABDs than will ever have with any other group or nationality. that you may think we are self absorbed clueless jerks is another matter altogether. that you can be so annoyed by us reflects a perverse commonality.
DBDs need to get over this notion that they have some sort of british accent. no one ridicules the desi “convent” accent more than brits. it takes less adjustment time for american and brits to “get” each other than with a convent accent desi. non-rhoticity alone doesnt make an accent british
No offense, but I’ve yet to meet any ABD who can do a (any) convincing regional Indian accent. In fact, most attempts are downright cringe inducing to DBDs. DBD parents are usually too polite to point this out to their offspring, and feign great amusement when their ABD kids do their impressions of Mummy and Daddy’s accent. And for that matter, I can’t recall any ABD getting anywhere close to the standard non-regional Indian public school accent.
I still don’t quite get the American obsession with ‘acceptable’ accents. My American (Scots/German) sister-in-law, who now lives overseas, polices her young children’s accents relentlessly (“since when did we start saying laboratory that way, daring?”). Very gauche, IMHO.
when i first came to aus from south africa, i found the aussie accent more strange than difficult to understand. i thought of it as a combo of both british & american accents. some words are pronounced in the british way (eg: mum) while other are pronounced in the american way (eg: dance, answer). when i tried to mimick the accent at school (so as to fit in) i had a hard time figuring out which words to do the british way & which ones to do the american way.
How wrong! The distinguishing feature, i think, is that aussies for some reason always end EVERY sentence in a questioning tone, even if it is a statement. For example – “I come from south africa?” so the “africa” will end off on a higher questioning tone. Just my observations.
Interesting, Chockalingam became Kaling, I have never seen vera being used in Tamil names.
hurt:
This is a blog under the humor category. I have made fun of accents and likewise I have been the target too. Do you think no one in India makes fun of accents?. Even within a region where people speak the same language, people make fun of how others speak.
English being the global language obviously would have people speaking in thousands of accents. Generally, if a person migrates and lives in a place different than where he learnt / spoke the language he/she’d be made the target of jokes for his/her accents by the locals. That is the scenario here with the ABDs having fun. Join the fun and don’t spoil it by feeling hurt.
I’m actually amused by the lengths that the DBDs go to fake their accent to be of a real “American”.
I can do a great ABCD doing an Indian impression impression.
Why don’t you guys have any FOB bloggers?
61 · A N N A said
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blockquote>42 · Swati said
I only knew a couple fellow ABD’s growing up besides my sister and I’d say absolutely not. My sister can understand Marathi quite well but cannot speak it. I can do neither. The only other ABD’s I knew were the same way with their mother tongues; they understood quite well but either strongly disliked speaking it, or couldn’t speak it at all.
Yeah, that is weird. I find Australians VERY easy to understand. Especially compared to thick Scottish and heavy British cockney accents. Some British do this bizarre thing where they often don’t sound out the consonants in words properly. They make that weird stopping noise like they’re swallowing their words. Not all British do this though … it is a weird dialect thing? I’m curious. I used to work for a British-owned company and some of my American co-workers complained about certain employees who were just impossible to understand when they spoke fast.
Slightly off-topic, but one thing that drives me nuts about Spanish is that the word for India is ‘Hindú’ and the word for Hindu (a follower of the religion) is ‘Hinduista’. ‘Indio’ is reserved for the indigenous people of North America.
I’m actually amused by the lengths that the DBDs go to fake their accent to be of a real “American”.
Dont be naive. A more neutralized accent leads to more opportunities at work.
The south asians I have seen pick up “american accents” fastest here are those that never spoke it previously.
Very true. That is why most hispters from Delhi or Bombay have a more pronouced accent than the lowly educated jatt from interior Punjab who has stayed in the US for a couple of years. If you speak English fluently, it will be more difficult to unlearn the way you pronounce words compared to someone who doesnt speak much english.
ditto for chinese – the few dialects i’ve bothered to check, refer to indians as hindus. it may be jarring initially for some, but i think it’s cool that the region was hindustan before religion and nationalism made this into a pissing contest. from the viki on the hindukush
81 · khoofia said
The version that I’ve heard from several people, scholars and otherwise, is that Hindu Kush means “killer of the Hindus”, because a large number of the Hindu slaves being taken from India to Central Asia perished on their slopes. Whether or not that is nationalistic BS, I cannot say, but Hindu Kush (or Kosh) literally does mean “Hindu Killer” in Persian.
True. But, I think people can figure out the imposters from genuine speakers. It is jarring to hear someone who speaks with Indian accent suddenly switching over to a ‘made up’ American accent to order coffee in Dunkin Donuts (which BTW is not even close to the real accent).
There are some folks who take ‘accent correction’ courses and really work hard to change their accent to move up in their professional careers, which is fine.
what is an Indian accent?? i always thought Indians from Kerela or Ahmedabad sound nothing like Indians from Delhi or Calcutta or Shillong. or am i just ignorant?
WHy would this be common? I never went to school with any other Punjabi-speaking classmates (except my brother); everyone spoke different languages — Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, etc. The only time I saw this flip was in college, when people would be in the same language class and speak “in mother tongue” outside of class, but even then it was rare.
As for excellent ABD imitations of regional accents, I have a friend who does an AMAZING Ahmedabadi accent/routine around maths examinations.
Re: the “right” accent, this isn’t really surprising, even if it is gauche, repressive, etc. Your accent can have a huge impact on how people interact with you and your professional options. For example, I have a handful of friends from the American South who have re-trained and re-learned New England and California accents because people treat them as though they are stupid when they speak in their southern accents. Same goes for my friends who speak with “urban” accents and opt for the more Valley cadence of the suburbs. It’s the same with Brits (there’s a reason RP exists and people jokingly make fun of regional accents), and naturally with different regions within desi countries.
Wrong. He was banned for violating the commenting policy, we don’t ban for hurt feelings, despite what you attempt to allege. If you have more spleen to vent, email, don’t disrupt the thread.
Growing up through the school system in India i learned Des/Desh meant country (if you listen to speeches or patriotic poems in Hindi ya’ll will get it), while desi/deshi implied something done more traditionally or kinda rustic eg: desi ghee as opposed to butter or desi chicken to broiled chicken.
83 · Camille said
I feel dumb asking, but what is “RP”?
74 · brownonion said
Because they are all over at UberDesi. That blog does the DBD in America-thing far better than we ever could.
Back on topic, please (and the topic is not “Why does SM ____?)
Surely, that can’t be worse than the french saying: L’inde; nasty, non?
87 · SM Intern said
I’m glad you mentioned Uberdesi, because I haven’t actually been able to access that site for over two weeks. Has anyone else?
True. But, I think people can figure out the imposters from genuine speakers. It is jarring to hear someone who speaks with Indian accent suddenly switching over to a ‘made up’ American accent to order coffee in Dunkin Donuts (which BTW is not even close to the real accent).
I have been approached before by at least 2-3 people who got fired from their respective jobs because people could not understand them. People get fired everyday from places like Dunkin Donuts for their accents. Not everyone can afford to go to an accent neutralization center. Sometimes its not a question of faking it. Its a question of people getting comfortable with you which leads to greater job security including for people who work for Dunkin Donuts 🙂
80 · Johnny Valker said
here’s some more to debait.
thus spake khoofia – he who vikis very vell vhen vella.
I agree that having a right accent helps in certain scenarios. But the folks that I’m talking about are paid well (H1B code coolies.. 🙂 ) or students on assistantships and their jobs do not really depend on their speaking skills.
Even if someone feels “comfortable” with accents of any kind are bad for business when they are so thick than customers cannot understand you.
Especially when no one else is around who they can understand, like when you’re on the phone with a call center worker. Here in my office I’m the only one that can navigate those desi accents. In fact, just the other day a young man lost a sale and commission precisely because of this reason.
It’s not their fault, it’s corporate America’s fault for employing them, but they get the brunt end of it from the rest of us on the other side. Poor kids, I really feel for them.
And for those chiming, “whats the big deal about our (desis) accents? everyone has an accent”.
The desi accent is particularly intense and difficult to understand. Let’s face it.
They don’t work. The desi accent cannot be “neutralized”, otherwise those call center kids would not have so many people hanging up on them, precisely because they cannot understand them. I know someone who teaches “accent neutralization” at a call center and he himself has a thick accent. Vaat to do?
It is/was very common for 2nd gen people in the UK to speak Punjabi or Gujarati (mixed with English of course) with their peers from the same language background. Although now that the UK desi community is moving into its 3rd gen I believe this habit is dying out in the new batch of kids, many of whom can not speak their respective Indian tongues.
What fascinates me is the relatively robust knowledge of Hindi amongst many diasporic Sindhis, including 2nd gen folks… for whom Hindi is not even their mothertongue. Most of them do know Sindhi too of course.
It is/was very common for 2nd gen people in the UK to speak Punjabi or Gujarati (mixed with English of course)
Across the ocean in both Canada and the United States, it is common among many punjabi youth to speak a mix of Punjabi, English and Ebonics mixed together[very painful to listern to]. These young people also tend to use a negative word about afro-americans that starts with the letter N alot. For some reason they use this negative N word instead of using each other names.
rp is received pronunciation darling
I find this thread very interesting because….I am a DBD currently living in the mid-west and I have a 2.5 year old ABD son. 🙂 It is interesting to see him speak in Tamizh and English. He has been going to daycare for a year now and so far, thankfully, he speaks Tamizh at home and English at the daycare. His English is definitely influenced by his Tamizh – you should hear him pronounce the name “Oliver” for instance! (with the “O” sounding more like an “Ah”, just like a Tamilian!). And his Tamizh? Clearly influenced by English! You should hear him say “nanbar” (friend) for instance – the “r” is definitely the American one! 😀
Knowing more than one language definitely means that our accents are influenced by the other, from what I have seen.
I find it interesting that a lot of DBDs who come to study/work in the US, try their hardest to blend in and part of that has to do with changing their accent and that is so funny as I can see through it (all that effort). Instead, an effort to speak clearly and slowly would help – that is what I found when I started participating in Toastmasters meetings.
BTW, I have never been able to hear the difference between a word that starts with a “v” and one that starts with a “w”. I have tried asking various people (locals, desis, Europeans) to pronounce words such as “window” and “van” but it always sounds the same to me. As long as I am not able to hear the difference, I will never be able to pronounce it right. 🙂
First my body fat, then my accent……miles to go