FF7 Headcanon: Veld and Codeswitching

[ladykf]

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This is a headcanon I’ve had a long time about Veld, accents, and code-switching.

Code-switching is where someone changes the way they talk to fit the situation they’re in, sometimes even in the middle of the same conversation. You hear it a lot with multilingual people where they may mix languages a few words at a time as they go. This also covers people who may speak one language while they’re in “professional” situations and whatever their mother language is at home, or slipping into certain speech patterns when they see family or old friends.

I picture Kalm as having a sort of southern accent (speaking as an American in the states, for specifics), a “lazy” sort of drawl where a lot of g’s get dropped of -ing words and everything gets a little softened around the edges. Little things like “gonna” or “woulda” and contractions that make the rest of the world squint and suspect they’re being put on. Born and raised there, I picture that as how Veld talked for the first half of his life.

Then came the Turks, a dangerous job where a young father got one hell of a scare when someone figured out where he was from just by his accent. Nothing came of it, but he taught himself fast to drop it on the clock. By the time he’s Director of the Turks, very few people indeed know he ever had an accent, his words are clear and perfectly crisp.

It’s very rare that he lapses back into it after the bombing. If he relaxes enough off the clock around someone who has him feeling nostalgic or very comfortable, it comes back some. Catch him off guard enough, or if he’s out of it, and you’ll also hear hints. There was a little of it unaddressed in THIS ficlet, but I actively mention it in my giftfic Wildcard (that desperately needs another two chapters, oi) but I thought it might be interesting just to put it out here.