Germany 13

Listen to Germany 13, a 23-year-old man from Berlin, Papenburg, and Niedersachsen, Germany. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 23

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/06/1986

PLACE OF BIRTH: Berlin, Germany

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: German (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: He was studying at university at the time of this recording.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

He has lived in Papenburg and Niedersachsen, both in Germany. He also lived in France for two years in his twenties but was not entirely fluent in French. At the time of recording, he had lived in California, United States, for one school semester.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject has picked up some of the slang terms and regionalisms of the area in which he currently lives.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Matt Gardner (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/11/2009

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, yeah, probably when I was, I don’t know, maybe like around 8 or 9, we just, just like a vacation with my mom and we went to like, went to Sweden. So, like, we, we took like, some boat to get there and then we stayed there for three weeks and visited some friends. Or family and, yeah, that was pretty fun ‘cus, like, it was just like, at the ocean and we were, just, “chilling” for a couple weeks and riding my bike down the streets; I don’t know. Just things that kids do. So, yeah, just a fun vacation. Swimming in the ocean, seeing, um, that was the first time I saw, like, sea stars in, like, nature and you could, like, pick them up from the ground and stuff like that. So …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Matt Gardner (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/11/2009

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Sound Changes:

[æ] [ɛ] – Occasional rising of the [æ] sound. This sound change is
inconsistent, and is not used in all contexts.
[u] to [ju] – tune, duke, news
[ɛɪ ] to [ei ] – face, tape, babe
[oʊ] to [oˑ] – goat, boat, robe[oəɹ] [oə] – north, war, form
[ʊ] to [ʊ̹] – foot, good, could

Sound Qualities:

1. This dialect is primarily based in [ə]. Unstressed vowels will often turn to schwa.

2. German speakers learn English from many different sources. Most often in the past, Germans learned English from British teachers. This resulted in many Germans who would speak in a variation of RP, which is not a rhotic dialect. However, the younger generation of Germans are learning English from Americans when they see Hollywood movies, study abroad, etc. Therefore, some Germans are using more /r/sounds, or r-coloring.

3. Inconsistent /r/ sounds. German speakers will sometimes substitute [ɹʷ] for [ɹ]. Fora thicker german accent, use of the uvular approximate [ʁ] can be used. In thisexample, the subject has a greater fluency in English and, therefore, will pronounce [ɹ] or [ɻ] more frequently.

4. Utilization of the alveolar approximate, [ l ]. The retroflex /l/, or [ ɭ ] is not used in this dialect.

5. [θ] and [ð] have a sort of dentalized quality to them. The subject in this sample does not quite go entirely to [θ̪] or [ð̪]. The sound is a kind of hybrid of the two.

6. Voiced consonant sounds have a diminished quality to them. For example, “would” [wʊd] sounds almost like [wʊt]. In other words, [d] turns to [t].

COMMENTARY BY: Matt Gardner (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/11/2009

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

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