Accent

One of my favorite details about KL (besides access to this blog) is the fact that I'm the one with the accent. In other words, most people speak English here, but the standard, the normal, the putonghua, is rolled Rs, crisp, clear consonants, and more latinate vowels--in other words, what we Americans usually perceive to be an "Indian accent." In Starbucks I asked where the bathroom was; the barista looked at me like I was crazy. "The bathroom, the restroom, where is it?" Still nothing. Finally she realized I was looking for the washroom. Oh, deh woshroom!--she told me where it was. In a different restaurant I asked for butter, pronouncing it budder, and the guy was totally confused until I pointed to the word on the menu--oh, bahttah.

In other words, here I am in the other once-colonial stronghold of the British Empire (Southern Asia as opposed to the US/Canada), and their version of English is more correct than mine! It's interesting to see how my version is the perverted one--and if I had to choose which one was closer to the Queen's English, I'd have to go with the version they speak here.

Is it possible that this privileging of the "Indian" English accent is supported by the existence of an independent entertainment industry, namely Bollywood and its offshoots? Wikipedia says no; the use of English in Indian cinema is a very recent phenomenon.

However, in many other places of the world (China, Spain are two that I can attest to), a large portion of screen-based entertainment, and the vast majority of originally-English-language screen-based entertainment, is from Hollywood. So, people who know or are learning English become accustomed to the American accent, even if their education privileged the QE.