Language Autobiography 2013: Standard Phildelphish
For my English class, we are focusing on different cultural languages and how it affects people in our daily lives. In the beginning of the project, we read short chapters from different books that deals with the authors' personal struggle in their lives based off their cultural languages. We then had to create our on autobiography and talk about our cultural languages and the struggles that we face everyday with it. Once we made a personal connection with our cultural languages, we had to bring it into a broader sense.
I was born in the city known as brotherly love, where from every corner there is a church and a bar. I am from the roots of slang where we speak with emphasis and where you can only find the best cheesesteaks. I am from the place where there are chinese stores and papi stores on every block. This is how I got my language and this is why I view other cultures and their languages as foreign to me. I am from Philly, not from anywhere else.
As a kid growing up in Philly, there is no such thing as blam language. Here, we speak with passion and emotion. I remember when I was about eight years old and my uncle called me “Lilman.” It wasn’t necessarily a nickname because he only used this phrased when I was being a good, “down to earth kid.” In most cases, he’d just call me Adam. Take this for example: It was a late summer afternoon when I was helping my uncle build a storage house in his backyard. I was doing a good job, but then I let my curiosities interfere with my objective.
“Hey Lilman, go inside the house and give me the hammer and some more nails.” He said.
“Alright Uncle Mike.” I replied.
When I went to go get the nails and the hammer, I became fascinated with the idea of hammering nails into the kitchen walls. My uncle heard banging and he went to see what I was doing.
“Bang! Bang!”
“What’s that noise? Adam, I hope that’s not you.”
(He looked at the wall.)
“Adam! I did not tell you to do this? What the hell is the matter with you? Take the nails and the hammer outside now!”
I was outside for a while. Sad. My uncle began to feel pity for his rage that he had expressed on me. He walked over to me, where I sat on the grass.
“Hey, Lilman...Cheer up. I wasn’t mad at you. Not even a bit.”
“Then why did you call me Adam?” I replied. “You only call me Adam when you are really upset and disappointed in me. Plus, you also said the H word.”
He chuckled. “Wow, I guess you caught me huh Lilman?”
“See...now you are not mad anymore. You called me Lilman.” I giggled.
My uncle always viewed me in two perspectives and I started to realize this as I began to grow. My real name was only used to express a negative emotion towards me but the phrase that my uncle used “Lilman” was only used to persuade me; to get me to do what was asked of me. I began to see how language had power behind it. It was powerful because it influences the way people respond or even react to the demands or tasks that they are told to do.
At the age of nine, my family decided to move to Cleveland, Ohio....city of the dumps. It was called this for several reasons. One, there weren’t any city events like Philly does in center city, two their sports teams suck, and third they spoke standard english only. It felt as if everyone were all duplicates and that they all were made up of the same DNA. No one was unique.
Third grade was a nightmare for me. I was an outcast because of my Philly slang. They use to think that I was weird or stupid because even though my slang, most of the time, referred to the same thing that they were trying to say, they preferred standard english. Third grade was the grade that made me participate less in class. You would have suspected that I was humiliated by a classmate but no it was even worse, it was my own teacher. Mr. Nunny! He was handing graded work back and he told us to look at it and revise on what we did wrong. I looked at my graded work but I was still confused.
(Mr. Nunny announced to the class.) “If anyone has any questions, quietly raise your hand and I will call on you.”
(I raised my hand.)
“Okay, well why did you circle ‘salty’?”
“Adam. It’s not complicated.” (His eyebrows were raised and his lips quenched.) “Well, if I’m not mistaking, you are human right?”
“Yeah?” I replied.
(I thought to myself.)
“How is this relevant to my question?”
(He then continued.)
“Reread your sentence to the class.”
“Ok.” (I said.) “The little boy was salty because he got caught cheating off his friends paper. He also --”
“Stop right there!” He yelled. “What language are you trying to speak, because I can certainly tell you that it’s not English.”
(The class began to fill with laughter. One kid asked me if that was how all dumb kids spoke. I then burst out.)
“‘Salty’ means when you, someone, or something feels or gets embarrassed.”
“Well, here’s the actual meaning of ‘salty’.” (Mr. Nunny scans in the dictionary.) “‘Salty’, means tasting of, containing, or preserved with salt. But I guess in your term, you are ‘salty’ right now.”
(The class is filled with laughter once more.)
So throughout that year, my classmates and my friends would always tease me. I became insecure, and I didn’t feel like participating in the class no more because I felt as though, I wasn’t just a kid responding to a question, I was “that” kid responding to the question. I felt hesitant to answer any questions, hoping that something stupid wouldn’t come out of my mouth again.
This was the beginning of reality to me. I began to understand that what may seem normal to me would likely seem foreign to someone else. My philly slang was foreign to Cleveland’s standard English. The more my family went on vacations to different cities or states, I began to see the different aspects in the way that people spoke. I learned how different phrases for trying to say one thing may make you look illiterate. For example, Sub v. Hoagie, Cheese Steak v. Steak n Cheese, Lucy v. Box, and etc. Each pair represents the same thing, or object in reality, but based off where you consider “home” you may have been only accustomed or exposed to one phrase.
If this situation were to have been vice versa, and I grew up in Cleveland and came to Philly and heard its slang, I would have thought that Philly people were illiterate or “ghetto.” I would have thought this simply because I would have only known how to speak standard english. This relates to what we see in our everyday lives. People who don’t speak standard english but instead speak with their cultural language tend to be viewed as illiterate and suffer from judgmentalism/inequality. In addition to this, our cultural languages can affect the level of power that we have. If you speak with an accent or slang, then in most cases, employees or even people from different backgrounds won’t take you seriously and would often allow you to have little power. If you have an accent or slang, you are misinterpreted to be dumb or can’t even comprehend, but the truth is that you do understand and that you are just as smart as the person with that different background or that person who speaks standard english.
I was born in the city known as brotherly love, where from every corner there is a church and a bar. I am from the roots of slang where we speak with emphasis and where you can only find the best cheesesteaks. I am from the place where there are chinese stores and papi stores on every block. This is how I got my language and this is why I view other cultures and their languages as foreign to me. I am from Philly, not from anywhere else.
As a kid growing up in Philly, there is no such thing as blam language. Here, we speak with passion and emotion. I remember when I was about eight years old and my uncle called me “Lilman.” It wasn’t necessarily a nickname because he only used this phrased when I was being a good, “down to earth kid.” In most cases, he’d just call me Adam. Take this for example: It was a late summer afternoon when I was helping my uncle build a storage house in his backyard. I was doing a good job, but then I let my curiosities interfere with my objective.
“Hey Lilman, go inside the house and give me the hammer and some more nails.” He said.
“Alright Uncle Mike.” I replied.
When I went to go get the nails and the hammer, I became fascinated with the idea of hammering nails into the kitchen walls. My uncle heard banging and he went to see what I was doing.
“Bang! Bang!”
“What’s that noise? Adam, I hope that’s not you.”
(He looked at the wall.)
“Adam! I did not tell you to do this? What the hell is the matter with you? Take the nails and the hammer outside now!”
I was outside for a while. Sad. My uncle began to feel pity for his rage that he had expressed on me. He walked over to me, where I sat on the grass.
“Hey, Lilman...Cheer up. I wasn’t mad at you. Not even a bit.”
“Then why did you call me Adam?” I replied. “You only call me Adam when you are really upset and disappointed in me. Plus, you also said the H word.”
He chuckled. “Wow, I guess you caught me huh Lilman?”
“See...now you are not mad anymore. You called me Lilman.” I giggled.
My uncle always viewed me in two perspectives and I started to realize this as I began to grow. My real name was only used to express a negative emotion towards me but the phrase that my uncle used “Lilman” was only used to persuade me; to get me to do what was asked of me. I began to see how language had power behind it. It was powerful because it influences the way people respond or even react to the demands or tasks that they are told to do.
At the age of nine, my family decided to move to Cleveland, Ohio....city of the dumps. It was called this for several reasons. One, there weren’t any city events like Philly does in center city, two their sports teams suck, and third they spoke standard english only. It felt as if everyone were all duplicates and that they all were made up of the same DNA. No one was unique.
Third grade was a nightmare for me. I was an outcast because of my Philly slang. They use to think that I was weird or stupid because even though my slang, most of the time, referred to the same thing that they were trying to say, they preferred standard english. Third grade was the grade that made me participate less in class. You would have suspected that I was humiliated by a classmate but no it was even worse, it was my own teacher. Mr. Nunny! He was handing graded work back and he told us to look at it and revise on what we did wrong. I looked at my graded work but I was still confused.
(Mr. Nunny announced to the class.) “If anyone has any questions, quietly raise your hand and I will call on you.”
(I raised my hand.)
“Okay, well why did you circle ‘salty’?”
“Adam. It’s not complicated.” (His eyebrows were raised and his lips quenched.) “Well, if I’m not mistaking, you are human right?”
“Yeah?” I replied.
(I thought to myself.)
“How is this relevant to my question?”
(He then continued.)
“Reread your sentence to the class.”
“Ok.” (I said.) “The little boy was salty because he got caught cheating off his friends paper. He also --”
“Stop right there!” He yelled. “What language are you trying to speak, because I can certainly tell you that it’s not English.”
(The class began to fill with laughter. One kid asked me if that was how all dumb kids spoke. I then burst out.)
“‘Salty’ means when you, someone, or something feels or gets embarrassed.”
“Well, here’s the actual meaning of ‘salty’.” (Mr. Nunny scans in the dictionary.) “‘Salty’, means tasting of, containing, or preserved with salt. But I guess in your term, you are ‘salty’ right now.”
(The class is filled with laughter once more.)
So throughout that year, my classmates and my friends would always tease me. I became insecure, and I didn’t feel like participating in the class no more because I felt as though, I wasn’t just a kid responding to a question, I was “that” kid responding to the question. I felt hesitant to answer any questions, hoping that something stupid wouldn’t come out of my mouth again.
This was the beginning of reality to me. I began to understand that what may seem normal to me would likely seem foreign to someone else. My philly slang was foreign to Cleveland’s standard English. The more my family went on vacations to different cities or states, I began to see the different aspects in the way that people spoke. I learned how different phrases for trying to say one thing may make you look illiterate. For example, Sub v. Hoagie, Cheese Steak v. Steak n Cheese, Lucy v. Box, and etc. Each pair represents the same thing, or object in reality, but based off where you consider “home” you may have been only accustomed or exposed to one phrase.
If this situation were to have been vice versa, and I grew up in Cleveland and came to Philly and heard its slang, I would have thought that Philly people were illiterate or “ghetto.” I would have thought this simply because I would have only known how to speak standard english. This relates to what we see in our everyday lives. People who don’t speak standard english but instead speak with their cultural language tend to be viewed as illiterate and suffer from judgmentalism/inequality. In addition to this, our cultural languages can affect the level of power that we have. If you speak with an accent or slang, then in most cases, employees or even people from different backgrounds won’t take you seriously and would often allow you to have little power. If you have an accent or slang, you are misinterpreted to be dumb or can’t even comprehend, but the truth is that you do understand and that you are just as smart as the person with that different background or that person who speaks standard english.
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