Therefore, here is a small observation that I would like to share. While we all know that all language speakers with their unique accents are malleable, I propose that some are more malleable than others. I have not discussed this with people born with different languages and accents, but I believe a person born in Jakarta and speaking Bahasa Indonesia (with the Jakartan dialect) has the most malleable accent.
Why, you ask. Firstly, there is no such thing as a Jakartan accent or dialect, apart from the more frequent uses of "gue and elo" instead of "aku and kamu" (I and you). If Bahasa Indonesia with different dialects is Chinese Food, the Jakartan speaks Cantonese food. Our accents are so 清淡 and light that we are easily influenced by other Indonesian accents. For instance, I lived with a significant number of people from Bandung when I was in Raffles. A few months forward, my parents could somehow pick up Sundanese inflections in my tone of speaking.
When I studied in Singapore, my English turned into Singlish pretty rapidly. My Bahasa had a Malay influence in it. Now, having spent more than a semester at Amherst, my friends back home tell me that I sound American-ish. When I was learning Chinese in Beijing people there told me that my accent sounded Southern. However, when I spoke Chinese to the Southern Chinese people afterward they told me that my accent sounded like a BejingER.
And so far no one can imitate what does an Indonesian-tainted English accent sound like. They claim that they can detect an accent in our English, but they can't mimic it nor point out what was "off".
Cool, huh?
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