Language is a beautiful thing. It's how we interact with others. It is very amazing how there are so many words that mean the same thing. For example, in English we say 'h'i or 'hello,' but in other languages, it's 'hola' for Spanish and 'konnichiwa' for Japanese. We may speak different languages, but the words have the same meaning at the end of the day. There are many different varieties to language. We can speak it, use hand gestures, and even touch and feel signs or books (brail).

Have you ever noticed how in the United States we have different accents? An accent can be the way we say words, or it can be how the word sounds when it comes out of our mouth. One example of how the word sounds when it comes out of our mouth is I have a friend that I work with and she is from down south in Louisiana. At work, we were talking about authors of books but we when she said the word 'autho'r it sounded like she said the name Arthur. My co-workers and I were so confused, as we didn't know who Arthur was. She then clarified that she meant an author of a book. While on a break she called her mother and asked her how she says the word 'author.' Her mother said it correctly, but we learned that it's a southern thing on how they say it. The moral of the story is I taught a southern gal how to say author in a Midwest accent. I have another co-worker that moved to North Dakota she is from Indiana and we were discussing how different parts of the U.S. say words. An example is some might say 'soda' versus 'pop.' With discussing other words, the word 'wagon' came up. We learned that North Dakotans say 'wagon' weird. Who knew?

So, the next time you hear someone talk, don't judge them based on how they say words. Simply note it as interesting and compare it to how you talk!