To find this incredibly irritating and rude?

[Whatonearth17]

Name change for this and I’m sure I’ll get flamed…but here we go…

I’m a Welsh speaker living in Wales and have an accent when I speak English. It’s a lovely thing and I love other people’s accents. I’ve just returned from shopping where an older English speaking ‘gentleman’ asked me to get something he couldn’t reach for him. I did him the favour and was polite to him at which point he repeated what I said in an over the top mocking Welsh accent. It is the THIRD time this week that a variation of this scenario has happened. Once at work (which I pushed back on) once when I was in the park with the kids and decided I couldn’t be arsed to say anything and today. Why do people think this is ok? The guy today in particular was patronising and belittling and quite frankly just rude. Would we do this to someone with a German/ Chinese accent? Or any other accent? Heritage? To their FACE? When it has happened at work and I can definitely identify their linguistic background, it tends to be people with one language? Multilingual people tend to do it far far less. I just find it so rude and ignorant.
YABU - it’s just banter
YANBU- let’s stop copying people’s accents shall we?

I’ve only ever experienced this from English people. No one else is stupid or ignorant enough.

Your username is a bit of a giveaway as to where that might be 😂😂

I’ve heard people tell Chinese and Asian people who have lived in England their whole lives that they speak English “well”

It is rude and annoying but happens everywhere in England about all accents IME. (I’ve not lived in Scotland or Wales but I’ve heard the Scottish guy in my local Aldi’s accent being mimicked. )

I would have done the same but being a short arse it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

This! I’m from a fairly northern area of my town where as a friend, who lives ten minutes away from me with a ‘posher’ accent, and her ex husband both mimicked my pronunciation of words. I’ve never forgotten it, but it didn’t bother me

Google translate does a reasonably good job with that, apart from estrongasaol a digywilydd.which comes out as "extroverted and cheeky". If you put estrongasaol a digywilydd.in on its own, it comes out as "extramarital and shameless" ... I'm going to guess it means a rude bastard?

I'm Scottish but work in England alot. I frequently get unflattering impersonations of my accent which tbh i find really annoying. You're right, it is kind of rude and I wouldn't dream of doing it to someone else.

I have a crush on my short, stocky, bespectacled plumber. He's a very nice man but I think his northern Irish accent is what makes the blood rush to my pelvis.

Scouser here. I live elsewhere and am told to 'eh, eh, calm down' on a weekly basis.

"I see this as a form of ‘othering’ where the person considers themselves the norm and anything different is a remarkable point of discussion"

That's exactly it.

"which is especially weird given you’re actually in Wales where it’s presumably quite normal to be Welsh!?"

Yes, but as mentioned, there are different types of Welsh accent. OP's type of Welsh accent is not the same as the man's so he decided she was worthy of ridicule.

"If he had a posh BBC English accent and was older then he’s probably lived a whole life as the default privileged class"

I'd be surprised if he fit that description.

Very rude.

People can get funny with accents. I am from Europe and speak very native like English, which is best described as English English with a scottish twang. Some people were trying to be clever and were guessing where I was from and came up with Australian or Kiwi....
I had noone mocking me though.

Yes, digwilydd means rude (literally shameless, but actually rude or impolite). Estrongasaol is a new one for me, but is made up of words that translate to xenophobic.

YANBU. People who think that the fact they are doing it because they 'love your accent' makes it a compliment are ignorant idiots. It's the sign of an uncultured, clueless monolingual thicko.

Why do so many English people seem to regard other people's accents as either weird/unattractive or sexy, instead of just normal? Literally everyone in the world has an accent.

Don't you think there's a difference between banter between friends and colleagues and being mocked by a stranger?

Hi op, didn't read comments so might have been said already, but there's a well documented unconscious trait called chameleon affect, or sympathetic accent syndrome. I know cos I do it (grew up with lots of languages around). Here if you'd like yo read : https://medium.com/the-shadow/unconscious-accent-mimicry-390f619ace35

It's the opposite of mocking you, people do it with empathy so mostly very empathetic people do it. It's really interesting.

It's been said many times so obviously not very interesting any more. Also, do you really think OP can't tell the difference between this and being mocked?

YANBU

I am in the same position as @SpanThatWorld's mother. - I have lost all trace of my accent. I moved from Ireland to England when I was 18 and very quickly got fed up people asking me to say things and saying 'your accent is so cute'... I also witnessed the bullying of one of my classmates because he said certain words in a strong Irish accent and I cringe at how I failed to protect my best friend from being bullied by a group of friends we went on holiday with - they spent the whole week saying 'potatoes'. I definitely think there is an element of perceived social status about this type of bullying and I see similarities in the history of the suppression of the Welsh and Irish languages and culture. The English that is spoken in Ireland, is not the same as the English that is spoken in England.

Saying that - I moved from one part of Ireland to another when I was 16 and hated the accent in the new place, so much so, that I obliterated my own accent and held on to a 'neutral' Irish accent. When I moved to England, it was relatively easy for me to morph into a convincing, fairly relaxed, southern English accent. I do however, pick up and mimic accents, wherever I am and find the conversation flows more freely when I do so. I used to speak in an American accent when on conference calls with US colleagues, it resulted in fewer clarifying questions and more open responses from them. Now I live in France, I do still get the 'you have a cute accent' comments, so can't quite pull it off in French sadly! I have discovered that the Swiss have quite a unique accent when they speak in French, if I mimic that instead - it seems better somehow..

It's not just monolingual people or English speakers. The parisians who study aerospace engineering in Toulouse give the locals a hard time for their accents.
People in the north of Spain will tell you they don't have an accent, because they see their Spanish as natural, correct Spanish and other native speakers' Spanish as strange and wrong.

It’s not clear that he was English though.
OP just said English speaking

My accent is mocked pretty much every day by my own family and strangers… I’m so self conscious about it..I feel so dumb, I have been 25 years in England and you would think I’m fresh arrived :(

that's still rude, but the key difference here is that they were mocking OP's Welsh accent while themselves living (and/or working) in Wales

Which just makes it bizarre, surely they are surrounded daily by Welsh accents, why would it even register?

Agreed OP. It’s not banter, it’s just plain rude. My husband has been teasing me about my Scandinavian accent occasionally for years and now the kids think this is acceptable - we mock mum for how she speaks. Ridiculous and I’ve had a serious word with ALL of them. I wouldn’t dream of mocking their attempts at speaking my native tongue, but of course it’s nowhere near as good as my English. I wouldn’t dream of commenting - it would put them off ever speaking it again!

Yeah a school run dad is Irish. I go weak. Irish accents have always done it for me though. School run dad is also extremely grey haired and distinguished and also a very kind man. He once helped me up after my arthritic and 10 years older than him knee gave way with such kindness. (So literally weak at the knees!!)

Same. I have an American friend who says I sound like the late Queen Elizabeth 2. I get called posh. I'm lower middle class, barely.