Bahmerican: My Language at Home In June of 1991, two families, who had many differences including socioeconomic, religious, and geographic were united in marriage. One was a middle-class family from the island of Grand Bahama. The patriarch, my maternal grandfather, was an executive with the Grand Bahama Power Company. His wife was a secretary for a construction firm. They were by no means wealthy, but they were able to send all three of their children, plus my grandfather’s younger brother Sean, to multiple private schools and universities. The other family is a poorer family from Macon, Georgia. The father was a truck driver and the mother was a cook and cleaning lady at a Holiday Inn. My father and his family were raised in the inner city,
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We call this language Bahmerican. For 12 years, I resided in the small town of Lincoln, California. When I say it was small, I do not mean to suggest that there were few residents, in fact, current statistics estimate that the population of Lincoln is 47,030. When I say that the town was small, I mean that the town was close-knit. Everyone knew everyone, though newcomers were always welcomed. My parents and I moved to this city in 2002. We had moved east, from Fremont, to look for a slower pace of life. For 12 years, I was immersed in the culture of the West Coast. From this culture, I have adopted Standard American English as a part of my trilingual personality. Standard American English, also called General American, is considered to be the dialect of Americans that do not already speak in a dialect, such as Boston English or Southern English. Some phonetical characteristics of Standard American English include rhoticity, or the firm pronunciation of the r-sound in certain words, such as pearl, car, and court. (Collins and Mees 178) Other characteristics include yod-dropping, which is the removal of the y-sound in certain words, such as new and tube, (Wells 247) and t-glottalization, which is when the t-sound of certain words is emphasized.
We call this language Bahmerican. For 12 years, I resided in the small town of Lincoln, California. When I say it was small, I do not mean to suggest that there were few residents, in fact, current statistics estimate that the population of Lincoln is 47,030. When I say that the town was small, I mean that the town was close-knit. Everyone knew everyone, though newcomers were always welcomed. My parents and I moved to this city in 2002. We had moved east, from Fremont, to look for a slower pace of life. For 12 years, I was immersed in the culture of the West Coast. From this culture, I have adopted Standard American English as a part of my trilingual personality. Standard American English, also called General American, is considered to be the dialect of Americans that do not already speak in a dialect, such as Boston English or Southern English. Some phonetical characteristics of Standard American English include rhoticity, or the firm pronunciation of the r-sound in certain words, such as pearl, car, and court. (Collins and Mees 178) Other characteristics include yod-dropping, which is the removal of the y-sound in certain words, such as new and tube, (Wells 247) and t-glottalization, which is when the t-sound of certain words is emphasized.