Re: CHAT: Being taken for a furriner ...

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> elautol:

> I've been taken for a foreigner before, but that's always involved me speaking
> in a foreign language. Possibly, my recent one-year stay in Germany has left
> some mark on my Swedish, but the whole incident nonetheless seems somewhat
> extraordinary to me.
> Anyone else here experienced something similar?
On a number of occasions I've had people ask me if I'm English
(or more vaguely "British") and once a Welsh woman asked
me if I was Irish.  I think I may have also had someone ask
me what my native language was, but I'm not sure.

I was born in Decatur, next to Atlanta, and lived there until
I was six; then my family moved to New Orleans for two and a
half years.  Ever since then I've lived near Atlanta.
I'm not sure why my accent is so unidentifiable;
theoretically it ought to be obviously Southern U.S. but
unobvious about where in the South it originates.


- Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/tokipona/tokipona.htm