World Conference On Languages

Name Tag

RASHEEDA

/rᴂ ʃi dᴂ/

To my fellow linguistic colleagues the first syllable of my name “RASHEEDA” has a onset of a voiced alveolar liquid with a rhyme of a the low, central unstressed (schwa) vowel, “ra”. The next syllable has a voiceless palatal fricative onset with rhyme of a high, front vowel “ʃi”. The final syllable has the onset of voiced, alveolar stops with the rhyme of a low, central vowel, “da”.

                                                Some time later

Huh, you want to know how to pronounce my name, well you start by raising your tongue toward the palate in the back of the mouth to make an “r” sound and then make a “a” sound, then again raise your tongue to your palate to make a “sh” sound with an “ē” sound, and finally let your tongue hit alveolar ridge to make a “d” sound, followed by an “a” sound.

RAH -SHEE -DAH  

Did that help?

My relationship with the English language

My relationship with the English language is one of the most confusing. I was born in New York to Jamaican parents and when I was younger most of my mediate family member spoke to me in broken English (patwa or patoise), but as soon as I started to sound “Jamaican” my mother started to push me to speak more proper English but instead started to speak a mixture between American English and my “heavy tongue why can you not pronounce that word” speech. When I went to Canada to live with my grandparent I was told by my cousin I spoke terrible and my English grammar was so American she would said “that not how you say this word or pronounce that word” she believed the way that Canadian speak is superior to how American speak (well, that is her opinion!), after coming back to America I continue to talk Yankee until I moved to Jamaica. I lived in Jamaica with some of my relative and I started to pick up patwa again but I was not allowed to speak it in primary school I spoke English. So when I came back to America and started high school anyone whose anyone belived that I was not from the country and assumed I’m from the Caribbean , I spelled “color” colour and pronounce the word  “the” different then everybody else among other words.  The funniest thing is that I spoke more patwa here than I did in Jamaica which is weird. I’m now learning Spanish and for me pronouncing words is hard but that’s just me, I switch between standard English to patwa before I know who I’m talking  to and then learning another language on top of that is really annoying.

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