Naveen Andrews : fake accent on Lost

Am I alone in thinking that Naveen Andrews's accent in Lost is appallingly fake?

The dialect coach and TPTB wanted to soften an Iraqi accent (because it can sound too harsh to middle america. Post 9/11 & war stuff, still going strong when the show started. It took major balls to have Sayid be Iraqi). They wanted to stress that Sayid was educated in Egypt and spent most of his adult life out of Iraq, which would dilute the accent.

S6, the change is done for contextual reasons.

Naveen is a musician and can mimic any accent or person, so he was pretty much just doing what he was told to do.

The Arab anti-defamation league wrote a letter saying how much they appreciate the way he portrayed the character to ABC, so if they are cool with it, good enough for me.

Given the loose ends and WTFs of the series, I have always been more curious about how Sayid, a well educated communications officer, could live and work in Paris, and not have a basic understanding of the language to interp the bulk of the distress call/maps!?

Maybe I'm remembering the storyline wrong, but didn't he live in Paris after he had been on the island, so he learned french after he heard that radio message in french?

No, rewatch Enter 77, S3.

It was a flashback. Showed him a chef in Paris, where he was caught by the husband of the woman he tortured. She confronted him, etc.

It was years before the island, while he was searching for Nadia.

Not a flash forward or sideway ep or even season.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enter_77

You're right, I got the episodes confused. lol.

With Lost, hard not to!

I just remember that ep well, cause the living in France, Communications officer, schooled in Cairo (at least 3 years of French).couldnt speak enough French to decipher a distress call or map?!

I guess Sayid missed his French classes to take extra snapping necks with legs advanced class!

No, you're not. He kept slipping into some Indian accent. It was strange. Hollywood needs to stop casting Indians as Middle Eastern people. He doesn't even look the part!

I pointed out in another post, Naveen was coached by a native speaker of Arabic. You keep mentioning how Indian he looks and sounds. Could you give some specific examples of what an Arab looks and sounds like? Are we talking about facial shape, the sound of vowels? Other people have complained that he sounded British. Some specifics would help. Hollywood won't do better until the general public knows better.

It's pretty hard to explain (in written words) the difference between accents, especially since there are MANY variations of the Indian and Arab accents it all depends on what region they're from, where/how they were educated, social class, etc. Living in Silicon Valley, I'm surrounded by people of Indian descent, and hear a wide variety of accents. I also see differences in their physical features, particularly between those from southern vs northern India.

Point being, I suppose there are SOME people from India who could pass for Arab, if they're from a certain region and/or upbringing. But usually I'd be able to quickly tell one from the other, based on certain features or verbal nuances. The Indian accent can sound almost British, especially if they were educated in English schools - plus they tend to pronounce "w" as we pronounce "v" in English, and vice versa.

I honestly didn't know Naveen was Indian at first, but I was fairly sure he wasn't Iraqi! So there is something inauthentic about his portrayal, I suppose didn't really matter to me, though, as he was just Sayid regardless. ;-)

Interesting that you think that. he was coached by a native speaker of Arabic. People on this forum with relatives from the area say he sounds like them. What have you heard that is different?

I am sorry for taking your time

Lost actually became self aware of the fact that he did not look arab in Season 5, hence "why there a dead pakistani on my couch?" "He's not dead mom". Or some joke like that.

You have to keep in mind that back then americans who are mostly of european descent or at least have come from european cultural backgrounds tend to overly associate "arab" with super dark and exotic.

One thing that annoyed me on lost is how Eko referred to him as "an arab man" at first sightlol like how would anyone know that? He could have been anything, less than likely an arab of all things.

I mean, I guess he could pass for an arab from the gulf region, like Oman, or Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, but that is because many arabs there probably have indian admixture over the centuries. Plenty of arabs are black too from the gulf states.


As far as accent goes, yeah, they didn't do a correct Iraqi accent. In Season 1 he says "ya kilb" to sawyer which means "you dog" when they are fighting.

In Iraqi, it is pronounced "cheleb", (ch pronounced like ch in choose).

Iraqis also have one of the thickest, or throatiest dialects, and Iraqis certainly have the most unique middle eastern arabic accent. It diverges greatly from other arab dialects and is heavily influenced by Persian, Turkish, and other influences. They even have a P sound, and can say pizza, unlike other arabic speakers.

He doesn't look like a typical Iraqi that is for sure. I mean, Iraqis get really tan in the sun, especially those in the south, but still on average they don't look like Sayyid.

In my opinion, the thickest arabic accent is that of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Very throaty and guttural. Tons of Berber/Amazigh influence too, along with French.

Moroccan arabic can't be understood by middle eastern arabs. Only by other North Africans. North African Arabic also drops like half the vowels out so you end up with hard to pronounce consonant clusters. Very cool language. And North African Arabic Music, like Ra'i is the best, far better than traditional arab music IMO.