"Foreign tongue" by Alexandria Carr

Foreign Tongues
As a child I realized I was born into two worlds. New York was my place of birth but as a child, I spent most of my youth in the south. There, I picked up the southern lingo, phrases and ways of speech. But when my summer’s in Burgaw were over, I made my ways back to New York. And with me I brought back something special, a foreign tongue.

I noticed in Kindergarten that something was weird about my speech. My words seemed to just fall off my tongue and my syllables were stuck together like twins conjoined at the head. The first day of school, every little kid said their name in that high-pitched, squeaky voice, but when Ms. Shabazz asked me to tell my name to the whole class, I sounded like one of the members from Beverly Hillbillies.

“Ahlexzandriya Carr” I said to the class and as soon as I finished the whole class gave a little chuckle. My little accent was uncommon amongst the room and served as entertainment for the snotty-nosed creatures in my class.

Years would go by and my southern slang began to reproduce with my New York world play and soon I gave birth to a whole new tongue. In the south, old folks would say “You a city gal’ with a southern taste” as they listened to my New York accent and Southern accent battle as I unconsciously used the two together. In New York, my friends heard my Southern accent and teased my foreign tongue. Ultimately they concluded my accent was that of a slave, and I was not to keen on that.

Soon I would try to hinder my southern accent to appear normal to the rest. I would catch myself from saying worlds like “finna” and “gunna” and when I talked about foods I made sure to say “string beans” instead of “snap peas” or “Snaps” cause I don’t think many New Yorkers call it that. But as much as I tried to wash away that southern taste, it always seemed to find away of coming back like the smell of chitterlings.

Now that I am old, I recognized my southern taste is here to stay along with my New York accent. Now they live in perfect harmony and with their little baby, which is my accent now. Some days my New York accent might come flying out like a wad of spit, or some days my southern taste may come out like a gentle kiss. All in all, I learned something as an adult that I couldn’t comprehend when I was young, my way of speech in not uncommon, its just a foreign tongue.