The loss of regional speech patterns--

51 and rainy... sure is nice to have it warm, but it's soggy!

I spent a lovely hour on Zoom last night with an old friend who lives in Canada. We had a lovely, wide-ranging conversation, everything from TS Eliot's "The Wasteland" to favorite series on Britbox. Such fun to chat with someone who is widely read!

One topic we touched on is the loss of regional dialects in spoken language. In times past, one could at least determine what country a speaker was from, and even the region of the country. Even more particular, people used to be able to pinpoint what county (parish, borough, etc.)-- but not so much anymore. We agreed that the loss of specific regional speech patterns and accents is cause for sadness. People are far more mobile in today's modern life, and we have radio, television, the internet-- all ways of blending speech into a more homogenized, non-descript sound. I remember being in college and having a conversation with a young man who hailed from Tennessee, I think it was. He was in the broadcast media major, and his distinct twang was part of his charm...except to his professor, who flatly told him to lose it, or he'd never work in television. What a shame. 

Turns out, he didn't stay. Nor did he work in television-- instead, he ended up having a widely syndicated country radio program. So there. He made it not only work, but pay the bills, to have a regional dialect. 

With the advent of digital media, AI, and all other things that can be created, we're at a cultural crossroads. Unique speech patterns are dying out, and are becoming meme-ified, mere caricatures of cultural speech. I don't want to hear the near-mockery, I want to hear the real people talking. Dialects used to be regional, pockets of tradition and culture carried from generation to the next. Instead, now we have Siri, Alexa, and autotune. It's sad, scary, and unwelcome, just another way of cultural erasure.

It feels like it's high time to reclaim our space at a human community; our cultural values are trashed daily by powerful people, and our voices are literally being taken away. 

Lots to think about, eh? 

C