The Yugoslav President, Josip Tito, appears to speak Serbo-Croatian, allegedly his native language, with a foreign accent. This article will analyze certain phonological and morphological features in his speech which point to that conclusion and which cannot be
explained by his advanced age and the consequent possible loss of faculties.
First of all, it may be useful to define what exactly is meant by a "foreign accent." While most everyone can recognize this phenomenon upon encountering it, most of us are usually hard pressed to define it beyond a general impressionistic statement, such as "he talks funny." What that means, of course, is that the person has failed to fully master the phonology of the
target language. In general, linguists maintain that each language has its unique phonology, a finite number of phonemes selected from the theoretically infinite number of sounds that the human vocal apparatus is capable of producing. What this means is that a sound which is
articulated in exactly the same way in two or more languages is not as common as we may think. A few examples will suffice to illustrate this point. In English, the voiceless stops (p, t and k) are aspirated (followed by an audible puff of air) in word initial position.
Elsewhere, they are not. This, of course, is an allophonic alternation and as such goes largely unperceived by the speakers. However, when a native speaker of a Phonology is the study of sounds produced by the human vocal apparatus for linguistic purposes; also, the sum total of the speech sounds (phonemes) of a given language at a point in time.
Morphology is the study and description of word formation in a language including inflection, derivation, and compounding. All of the data come from a recording of a public speech
given by Tito in the fall of 1977. 4 The smallest unit of speech to carry a difference in meaning;
for example, the English words pot and tot have different word
initial phonemes.
