You know, it's one thing to hear about a phenomenon, but nothing beats experiencing the real thing. Friends who had recently returned from Ghana had complained incessantly about the rise and rise of the LAFA. Huh? That was my initial reaction too. It stands for "Locally Acquired Foreign Accent". You see, as part of some Ghanaians' haste to embrace anything and everything foreign, the beautiful Ghanaian accent has fallen victim to tragic butchering. As a linguist (3 years of uni is worth it just to be able to say that. Yay me! Lol), I'm well aware of the fluidity of accents and how easy they adapt and merge. However, there is a patent difference between somebody who has lived in a different culture and has therefore adopted (consciously or unconsciously) the local accent, and a person who has never stepped foot outside the country for any length of time.

I remember when we we in our teens, Friday's Afro and I would call this an "Aferican" accent and it's sad to see the phenomenon has not died out but seems to be under going some kind of revival. Originally the property of the Ashanti "bogas", the LAFA is thriving everywhere. In my experience, most Ghanaians speak excellent English but I can't count the amount of times I've heard people apologising for their English merely because they don't possess some kind of foreign accent. What is so special about a foreign accent? What are the thought processes that lead a person to think it's normal to fake an accent? Can anybody out there enlighten me?

On the flipside, since my arrival in Ghana, I've become a victim of what I call "accent-ism". I've been introduced to people who are perfectly pleasant until I open my mouth. The English accent provokes a total and complete shut down in pleasantries. Often the person will adopt a look suggesting they have just smelled something bad (it's not my armpits, I checked...) and even Stevie Wonder can see the "wo ye too-known" look that passes across the face. I'm by no means suggesting that everybody has been like this but I'm beginning to see that the accent war goes both ways. Now what kind of fuckeries is that?

To see a fantastic LAFA at work, check out the link below. You have been warned...
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=100986489923283

Now what experiences of the LAFA or accent-ism have you experienced?