Around the World

I miss hearing people’s regional accents. They’re like spice in the stew, jimmies (or sprinkles if you’re not from Boston) on top of the vanilla soft serve or just like jalapeños on my morning bagel.

My cousins Gary and Della grew up in Yonkers. Some of my coworkers are from South Boston. My fabulous niece Helen was born and raised in Texas.  They all have accents, even if slight, and I wish I could hear them. (yeah, I know—whine, snivel. we all want something in this world. ah, but still...!)

My Aunt Mary Ann had a big upstate New York twang despite living in Manhattan most of her adult life. I loved hearing her say the word mad, as in “I was just so mad." The ‘a’ in mad was always flatter than pint of stale Saranac Pale Ale and pulled out so long, the word became two syllables.

Having just returned from Pittsburgh (sorry, I mean Pikksburgh), where the Steelers (oops, I mean Stiwers) play, where my folks’ house is by a creek (crick) and I’m someone’s Ant not Aunt, I’m sorta feeling the loss. Every time Jen and I pass the Giant Eagle grocery store on Route 376 heading East to Indiana, PA, I ask her if she remembers how to pronounce the name of this establishment. Yes, she does and proceeds to recite, with a sigh—I’m sure, Gian Iggle. (no t in Giant and a short i sound on the ea—duh)

While sitting at the hotel bar Saturday night, watching the VPLs parade by, I kept asking Jen ‘do the folks sitting to your left have an accent?’ ‘Does the barkeep have one’? ‘How ‘bout them? What do they sound like?'

Poor Jen. She goes through this on top of my father’s insistence that she speak in a heavy South Shore (South Sho-ah) intonation, despite the fact that she doesn’t have one in real life. Yes, I get my language obsession from the old man. Vati. Mio padre.

One year for vaca, Jen and I met our pals Cindy and Giovanni in Venice. They drove up from their home in Southern Tuscany. After four days of non-stop killah museum hopping, glass factory touring, getting lost and enjoying the gustatory pleasures of that Victorian shrub maze of a city, Cindy and Giovanni headed back home to Sarteano. Jen and I decided take a night off.  We picked up a loaf of crusty bread, wedges of Pecorino and Asiago and, of course, a nice bottle of Chianti (I’m fairly certain that last bit was redundant). Our intention was to read the evening away while enjoying our simple yet fabulous repast.

And then we turned the television on. We watched a ski jump competition which, I was certain, was broadcast by a German station. The tone, the rhythm, the cadence of the announcer’s speech seemed quintessentially German yet he was speaking Italian and it was coming from Milan. We spun the dial in hopes of finding, our idea of, Italians speaking Italian.

Now, beyond a few words and phrases, I don’t speak or understand the language but I so wanted to hear the beautiful, flowing, music of it—what I thought I KNEW Italian sounded like.

Turns out, after clicking and listening through every Northern Italian station we could tune in, we WERE hearing Italian spoken by native speakers. They’re close to the Austrian border so, of course, the language seems relatively clipped compared to Italian spoken by Romans or Neapolitans. I’m not describing this well. It just sounded as though everyone was speaking Italian with German accents.

Wild stuff! I’m just mad about regional pronunciations and argot—foreign and domestic.