You Have an Accent

For the past 30 years I (Chantal) have lived in many different countries, and sometimes I find it very irritating that no matter whether I am speaking my native English or Spanish or now German, as soon as I say anything, even if it’s the most mundane thing, someone will invariably ask where I’m from. I have an accent. I was born in South Africa, where I spent the first 24 years of my life. While living there, I spoke accent-free—or so it seemed. I became aware of the fact that I had an accent only when I left South Africa.

We all have accents. Even in a country in which the same language is spoken, different regional accents serve as an invisible tag we all carry, saying something about who we are and where we come from. There is a downside to having accents, of course. We unconsciously evaluate people by their accents. Someone with a “cultured” accent we perceive as being more intelligent, while we treat people with a foreign accent with suspicion, depending, of course, on whether they come from a desirable place or not. The bad news is that accents are very hard to change. Yes, there are experts, such as professional actors, who can learn to play a convincing character with the corresponding accent. Nevertheless, an accent change is not usually permanent, and under stress people quickly slip back into their old accents.

If you are not exposed to a language other than your native language before adolescence, chances are very high that you will always have a foreign accent in any language that you learn afterward. So how do we get an accent? We pick up an accent by association and example. No one actively teaches us to have an accent. We learn it as we learn our native language. We will reflect the accent of our teachers and our social environment.

Having the Same Accent

The Bible mentions a curious accent reference. Being asked where you are from can be annoying, but for Peter it was dangerous. After Jesus was arrested, Peter followed the crowd and sat in the courtyard, where he was identified as an associate of Jesus. He denied it (claiming not to have an accent is normally an obvious giveaway to everyone but the speaker) and changed locations, but again someone identified him as having been with Jesus. Peter again denied it. And once again, people claimed that he had been with Jesus. Then one of them said to Peter: “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away” (Matt. 26:73, NIV).

We unconsciously evaluate people by their accents. The bad news is that accents are very hard to change.

It’s very probable that Peter had a Galilean accent, as did Jesus. But there were probably a lot of people with a Galilean accent in Jerusalem at Passover, and we know that not all of the disciples were Galileans—so there must have been something more to this accent. The giveaway must have been more than how Peter rolled his R’s. We see this by Peter’s reaction when he begins swearing, that is, using language that would disassociate him from Jesus. Hiding in plain sight in this story is a miracle. In the three-plus years of close association with Jesus the disciples had somehow picked up His accent to the extent that they now spoke like Jesus, and even in moments of extreme stress it was now their native accent. As soon as they opened their mouths, people knew that they had been with Jesus. They sounded just like Him.

Transformation

Picking up an accent as an adult is very difficult if not impossible. Maybe that’s part of what Jesus means by being born again (John 3:3). After being born into God’s kingdom, we learn a new “language” of love and begin to pick up a new accent by association with Jesus and with others who love Jesus. This intimacy and the natural way this takes place is reflected in John’s memories of being with Jesus. John writes: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:1-3, NIV).

Argumentation and logic have their place, but people will really hear our native accent as we speak about spiritual realities. We can’t put on a pious accent. People can tell that it isn’t real—that it’s something we are putting on. It’s only by rebirth and association that we will quietly start picking up this accent. And then as we begin talking in our newborn accent, we will not be irritated when people ask us where we are from.