Over the course of my life I have experienced and been part of many languages. Although I consider myself bilingual, I have tried to speak Spanish. Growing up in Athens, Georgia I was presented with many opportunities to distinguish and determine different dialects. As you may know Athens is in fact a college town. Which in turn brings in students and athletes with many different cultural as well as economic backgrounds. Some of Students that arrive at the University of Georgia speak differently to what the average American is accustomed to, or speak a different language. Students come from the north,midwest, west you name it.I have been to exposed to this sort of life throughout my high school career. I remember overhearing different accents at stores, bowling alleys and various sporting events. I have also been exposed to African Swahili, Spanish and Portuguese. I have come to respect these different languages because of the uniqueness each one possesses. For example, In my old high school we had a decent sized Hispanic population. When I would walk through the halls I would overhear some of my Hispanic friends speaking Spanish. I was amused and overwhelmed by the flow and quickness of their language. I was so interested that I decided to enroll in a Spanish class to earn credits for both high school and college. This class was very interesting even though I didn't become very fluent in the Spanish language. An interesting fact about this decision was that I was the first one on my family to take a foreign language.

My family is all from the south, more specifically Georgia. My family along with my mother and father, I have one brother who is like the rest of my family have pretty deep rooted southern accents. We say words like " Y'all" and " I'm fixin to" in which I know is not proper grammar. As I recently said I was indeed the first person in my family to take a foreign language class. My dad was so intrigued by my enthusiasm for the class that he tried to speak Spanish himself. He always talked about getting post- it notes and putting the Spanish words for the object he would put them on. But he never did it, instead we went on a five day cruise to the Cayman Islands and Cozumel. While on this trip we heard different accents that at these point because of my vague memory I can't put in words. On the trip we went to various beaches, we snorkeled with a guy with a Jamaican accent and went to a turtle farm. This trip really made me appreciate our language and others as well.

Prompts for Blog 1

ENG 1101: “Language Controversies”
Week 1, Day 3
Blog Prompt 1
Blog 1

Your first blog assignment is a personal essay. It should be between 300-600 words, but feel free to write more if you get inspired! You may write using the first person (I) and describe one or several aspects of your linguistic history. Some topics you might wish to cover include:

• The languages you have been exposed to over the course of your life, and how important they are to who you are. Is English your native language? Are you bilingual or multilingual? Did you learn other languages as a child and then forget them? Have you taken courses in other languages?
• The relationship between family and language. Do any members of your family speak other languages and dialects than you do? Does that make you feel connected to another culture, or make you feel estranged?
• How has school has affected your language? Have teachers made you try to speak differently (or write differently) than you would otherwise? Do you admire academic standards of language, resent them, or do you care?
• Any stories about yourself and your language that you think are funny, interesting, or say a lot about who you are. Have you ever gone abroad and come back speaking with a different accent just for fun? Have people from other regions or countries commented a lot upon your accent?