New York 13

Listen to New York 13, a 30-year-old man from Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 30

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/10/1975

PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City (Manhattan)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian (Jewish)

OCCUPATION: actor and daycare teacher

EDUCATION: bachelor’s degree and some master’s work

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

At the age of 18, the subject moved to Northfield, Minnesota, for college, although he returned to New York during the summers. He was still living in Minnesota at the time of this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Subject is fluent in Russian.

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

RECORDED BY: Joseph Papke

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/04/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Yeah, the building was my neighborhood. For example, you know how people here say, “Oh, yeah, your kid’s growin’ up an’ everything. Oh, he’s so much bigger than when I saw him the las’ time…” Or whatever. All that in my — in me growing up happened in my building. So, I had the neighbors who lived in 915, when I lived on 14, and they were the ones I’d see going up in the elevator. And it was in the elevator where you saw everybody. And I think that’s one of the biggest differences when I — when I talk with people who grew up in a small town, or whatever. I’m used to seeing strangers all the time. Um, and so whenever I’ve gone to a little town, where everybody knows everybody, knows everybody, it’s a trip because that’s not how I grew up. I was — I always grew up used to seeing people. And I remember the first time that I went to see Minneapolis, I was on a, uh, school trip from college, from this little rural town where I lived in, and we were coming up to the big city for something. And I looked in, and I saw these big beautiful buildings on a Saturday, but there was nobody. There wasn’t anybody anywhere, and I was like, who stuck in a vacuum cleaner and sucked out all the people? And now it makes sense, because it means that, you know, we were probably driving through downtown Minneapolis, which can be pretty empty on the weekend because nobody’s working. So, it’s a funny thing about the way I know I say my A’s. I used to live on Harriet Avenue, 2400 Harriet, and, uh, I remember being on the bus, the number 2 bus, running along Franklin Avenue. Everybody had gotten off the bus except for me. It’s about to reach its last end point. But it’s dark, and it’s kinda hard to see the streets, so I called out to the bus driver, “Could you please stop at Harriet Avenue?” And he was like, “What?” And I said, “Could you please stop at Harriet?” And he’s like, “What?” “Could you please stop at Harriet?” “What?” And then I remembered. I had this accent, so I said, “Could you stop at Harriet?” And he said, “Oh, sure.” And the bus stopped. I have made a carrot and apple salad that I actually learned how to make in Russia. And you take your carrot and you chop it up, and then you, uh, and you take your apple and you chop it up. And usually I use lemon juice in there, but, you know, you could be inspired to use orange juice, but I, I wouldn’t use, you know, I probably wouldn’t use apple juice. I think, well, maybe the apple juice would work, but if I put Coca-Cola in there — some Coke — it’d be horrible. But I wouldn’t put “pop” in there, ‘cause we don’t drink “pop” in New York City. We drink soda. Here’s another thing: We wear sneakers. We don’t wear tennys or running shoes, and I’ve confused the kids in my daycare. I’m like, “Please put your sneakers back on,” and they look at me like, huh? “Put your sneakers back on.” And they’re like, “What?” And they don’t know what I’m saying when I say sneakers. And that’s what I grew up calling them. They call them “running shoes” or “tennys.” They’re sneakers. …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/10/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject is a 30-year-old white male of Jewish descent. He comes from a comfortable middle-class background and is college educated.  The subject was born and raised in the borough of Manhattan in New York City and lived there for 18 years until moving to Northfield, Minnesota, to attend college (though he lived at home during the summers). After college he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has resided since. He currently works as an actor and daycare teacher. The subject is also a fluent speaker of Russian (but did not grow up speaking it).  The subject reads “Comma Get a Cure.” In the unscripted speech, he discusses the building he grew up in, some differences between NYC and Minneapolis, and one of his own observations about his dialect. At my request, he also tells a brief story involving the words “orange,” “carrot,” and “horrible.”  The subject’s New York dialect is mild. It has also perhaps been slightly homogenized by having lived in the Midwest and trained and worked as an actor.

Words to listen for in Comma Gets a Cure include:

COMMENTARY BY: Joseph Papke

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/04/2005

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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