im sorry, but this might be a bit long…
hello people of lemmy, this is not a question to all of you, but some. For context, im brazilian, i was born in the northeast region of my country, i was raised mostly by my two parents, and a family friend, who i call my aunt, also northeastern. in 2010, we migrated to the state of São Paulo, since, Piauí, the state we come from, and northeast region as a whole is quite subdeveloped. Life was hard there, which forced us to move. I came to here at around 6, and grew around the locals.
Brazil is quite a big country, at around the same size of the continental united states, and with a size comparable to Europe. Its also quite densely populated for such a big single country, as such that one region has a radically different culture from another(like northeast(my home region) and the southeast(the region São Paulo is located at)). I for example, as a norteastern developed a mix of accent between my home region and the local accent.
I am curious, you, which have faced a similar situation, moving from one region to another with the same, or similar language. Being migrating within the same country, or between different countries, how do you feel like? how do you talk? what do you identify with?
Moved around a lot when I was a child, between multiple areas in two very large countries. It wasn’t just the dialects that changed, but also the language itself. I’ve lived in three different language regions. As a result, I’m now trilingual and can speak multiple dialects in two of those languages.
But my accent doesn’t fit any of those languages or dialects, it’s a weird blend of them all and it makes it seem like I’m not a native speaker of any of those languages.
I moved to another region in my home country for college. It’s not a very big country, but people literally speak a different language between regions. Then a couple of years ago, I moved to the US. I’m doing good so far. I moved through my job, so the state I ended up in wasn’t exactly my first choice, but beggars can’t be choosers right? My accent is pretty neutral, you can tell I’m not a native speaker, but most people can’t tell where I’m from by my accent either. If you ask someone from my home country, they would consider me as having an “american accent”.
I’ve moved a few times around the US and, like the other commenter, have adopted kind of a mixed dialect. I grew up in the north but spent quite a while in the south, which have VAST cultural differences, and people from the south can tell I’m not one of them while people from the north think I’m from the south. For a little while after my first move from the north to the south, when I was still in my early 20s, I felt out of place but a lot of that was probably just due to being insecure and half a country away from my family. Wife and I moved to a northern state a few years back and we both feel even more out of place here because of the state religion but have accepted that we like being nomadic. We’re mapping out a plan to move to a different part of the south and try that culture, then maybe after a few years move to a different part of the north or possibly a different country because why not. I used to be scared of trying new/unknown things (perk of growing up in a small town) but now I embrace it because there’s so much to learn from different people and cultures. Plus I figure if we keep trying then my wife and I will find our tribe eventually