In the morning

In the morning, before we put on our togs (bathing suits), before we look for Ngaire's jandals (flip-flops), when the sounds are the squeaky call of the tui or the electrical racket of the cicadas in the trees, and the colours I imagine beyond my closed eyelids are green--this country is GREEN--and red from the blossoms on the pahutakawa, I have a moment in which to decide:

morning or mo(r)ning

"Good morning, Ngaire," like the North American I've been for the last 26 years, or "Good mo(r)ning, Ngaire," like the New Zealande(r) I can be.

Dropping the 'r' is not an enti(r)ely new concept fo(r) me. My British friend Lauren was chastised each time she came into the house speaking the American dialect we all somehow agreed upon in our expatriate compound in Saudi Arabia. Neve(r) mind that we we(r)e Greek, Indian, Lebanese, Canadian, and so on. We spoke American. "Speak English, Lauren!" said Lauren's British mothe(r) when Lauren fo(r)got to drop the American at the front doo(r) befo(r)e proceeding to the kitchen. And thus Lauren maintained two dialects and I was exposed to a wo(r)ld of 'nea(r)', 'dea(r)', and 'da(r)ling.' "The phone's fo(r) you, Ki(r)sten," Lauren called to he(r) younge(r) siste(r). Or was that me? When I pictu(r)e da(r)ling Ki(r)sten, she's as much a Ki(r)sten as a KiRsten. I could call he(r) eithe(r). People did. Lauren now wo(r)ks in in England. People on the phone ask whe(r)e she's from. She claims some random state in the U.S. to cu(r)tail the conve(r)sation about Saudi. Indiana, I think.

We a(r)e all so, so good at spotting difference. Hitchhiking no(r)th from a reggae conce(r)t in Matakana, Ngaire and I we(r)e approached by a blonde teenage(r) in a blue singlet (tank top/'wifte-beater'). We exchanged fou(r) utterances and he left to check with the drive(r), his gi(r)lfriend, that we could indeed get a ride. Ngaire tu(r)ned to me: "Whe(r)e's he from?" I shrugged. "I dunno. He(r)e?" "Nah," said Ngaire, "I thought he was from America o(r) something." I had spotted a difference and assumed he was a Kiwi. Ngaire had spotted a difference and assumed he was No(r)th American.

The mystery was solved 5 minutes late(r) in the ca(r). Blue singlet was raised in White Rock, British Columbia, for the first 10 yea(r)s of his life, before moving with his Kiwi mothe(r) to Auckland for the next 8. Woah! So much richness in this case study! We could talk about the issue of "mothe(r) tongue," for sta(r)te(r)s. We don't call it "fathe(r) tongue" for a reason--kids tend to take thei(r) mothe(r)s' accents. And yet blue singlet hadn't. And what of the "critical age hypothesis", by which resea(r)che(r)s a(r)gue that if you get imme(r)sed in a language before age 7 or 11 or pube(r)ty, that you can achieve pitch-pe(r)fect fluency in that language? Blue singlet was ce(r)tainly not a pitch-pe(r)fect Kiwi.

I subdued the geek in me that wanted to discuss these issues, but still made him pronounce a list of wo(r)ds that I scribbled into my notebook, designed to quickly test the accent:

call
awesome
family
difference
torso

The last one made everyone laugh: "toRso." Said like a Yank. Even I wouldn't have fallen fo(r) that one, and I've only been he(r)e a week. "Yeah, but you'Re trying to change youR accent," he responded. Fair enough. He was just living his life. And since No(r)th American and Kiwi accents a(r)e--for the most part--mutually comprehensible, why would he change?

My dad didn't lose his Kiwi accent because it was incomprehensible to the Americans who called him while he was wo(r)king in Montana. He lost it because those Americans pe(r)ceived it as different and made fun of him. "Where are YOU from? ENG-LAND?" Easie(r) to inse(r)t some 'r's and extend the vowels than explain. Fast fo(r)wa(r)d fo(r)ty odd yea(r)s and my dad ba(r)ely references the language he hea(r)d and spoke for the fi(r)st couple decades of life, except when he speaks to his beloved cat Jake, and when he thinks no one else can hea(r).

Good mo(r)ning, Ngaire!