When we travel abroad as a family, our two daughters, my wife and I, conversations in English often lead to puzzled looks. One daughter is placed in the U.S., the other in England. And we, my wife and I? We are unmistakably from Germany.
Our older daughter was a toddler when we lived in Boston, where I had the privilege of doing postdoctoral research at Harvard University. She was two and a half when we returned to Germany, yet the rhythm and melody of her early English never left her.
Our younger daughter moved to England at seventeen, studied chemistry, earned her PhD in Oxford, and stayed for ten years. When she later spent a practical year in Germany, people praised her “excellent German”, assuming she was British.
And then there’s us, her parents, whose accents always give us away. “Where do you come from?” we’re often asked. “What do you guess?” I reply. “Germany,” they say almost every time.
All four of us were born in Germany, yet our linguistic fingerprints tell different stories. What surprises people is not where we come from, but that we come from the same family.
What I take from this: language carries memory, emotion, and belonging. Our accents are traces of life lived across borders.
In a world that still sorts people by origin, our family reminds me that diversity begins at home.
What du you think: How might our conversations change if we treated every accent as a story rather than a category?
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I am Bernd Scharbert and I support you as a leader in implementing intercultural guiding principles in your everyday life. It’s about using cultural differences not as a hurdle but as a strength, and creating real connections in globally composed teams. Inclusive use of language is the first of the guiding principles.
You are also welcome to take a look at my book. “Prepare for Landing: Leitlinien für Interkulturelle Führung.” The e-book is available at the online shop of Verlag Barbara Budrich as well as the print version. In German language, though, as I am now working on the English translation.
