As a millennial who grew up seeing the rise of the information era, I remember many of my studies often included the analysis of Western influence on our society and culture in Africa. Back then, it was easy as most of the technology and information was coming from the Western countries; they were bombarding our local media with it. Everything we grew up consuming in terms of media and information technology was mostly western.
While many countries have advanced and improved on their media production and consumption, for some reason, the West manages to hold the reins of media and mediums tightly. For instance, TikTok is essentially Chinese but is wholly controlled by the American market. Also, the founder of the channel now known as Cocomelon was a South Korean man, and now Cocomelon is an American-owned brand.
Which brings me back to the subject at hand. My son has been watching Cocomelon for a good part of his life. He has learnt the ABCs, 123s, colours, foods and many songs from the channel. He also watches a lot of other content on YouTube Kids (also an American platform) from various other American channels. It is important to note that he watches a variety of platforms in various languages.
In the beginning, it was all well and good as the charm of captivating images and sounds and the well curated songs taught my son the fundamentals of learning. It’s only now that my son is almost three years old that I find myself realising that he pronounces most of his words in the American style. He also has a somewhat foreign accent that is unlike any of ours nor has any connotation of his African heritage.
My child was born in Kenya, he spent the first year of his life there before moving to a non-English speaking country. Other than when I speak Kiswahili to him, English is the main language in our home as my husband and I come from very different backgrounds. But how does my son, who speaks English at home and is spoken to in Kiswahili and Germanic languages, come out sounding like an American kid from the Midwest?
In British English as well as German, the letter Z is pronounced as zedd or zett. Now let me present my child, who pronounces it as zii. A zebra is Ziibrah.
Just this morning as I was formulating my article, my son came in and asked for warrer (water). The kid doesn't even sound pretentious, this is just his accent now. Even though we currently live in what is considered the ‘western countries’ with a culture and language of its own, how is my child still deeply influenced by American culture?