Pennsylvania 7

Listen to Pennsylvania 7, a 44-year-old man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 44

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1961

PLACE OF BIRTH: York, Pennsylvania

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: college degree

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

The subject grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and then moved to State College, Pennsylvania, for university studies. At the time of the interview, the subject had lived in Alaska for 17 years, having resided in both Nome and Fairbanks.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

His father was born and raised in York County in Pennsylvania, but his mother was born in Connecticut and raised in Florida. (Her parents were from France.)

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

RECORDED BY: Rick Thomon

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, I was born in York, Pennsylvania. Uh, that’s, um, about three counties west of Philadelphia.  Uh, and when I was, uh, between 1 and 2 years old, my parents moved, uh, thirty miles east to, uh, Lancaster County, and, uh, I lived in Lancaster County, uh, until, uh, I was about 20.  I attended college a couple of years back in York, commuting back and forth.  So, until I was 20, I was i– in my — I lived right there in, uh, Lancaster and York counties.  When I was 20 I went to, uh, uh, to college in State College, Pennsylvania, right in the middle of Pennsylvania, and I, I wound up getting a job there after I graduated.  So I lived, uh, a total of about, uh, seven years in State College.  And then in 1988, I got a job in Nome, Alaska, and I’ve, uh, lived in Nome for a couple o’ years, and then, now in Fairbanks.  So for a total of, um, what?  Seventeen years now, I’ve been in Alaska.  My father was, uh, born and raised in York County, Pennsylvania an- and his, uh, his family had been there for a very long time.  My mother was born in Connecticut.  Uh, her parents were, um, of French descent.  Her father actually, uh, was born in France, and, uh, her mother was born in New York City just a couple months after her mother had arrived in, in New York City, from France.  Uh, my mother moved, as a, uh, as a girl, uh, to, uh, St. Petersburg, Florida, uh, where she then lived until, um, I think she was 17, when she, uh, moved to Pennsylvania.  Uh, my speech, um, the thing that people tend to notice the most is, uh, I say “yous” for, uh, second-person plural pronoun.  And, uh, my wife, uh, still razzes me about that.  She, uh, just can’t, uh, can’t get over that I say “yous”  or “yous going to the store.”  Um, I’ve noticed that, um, uh, there’s a few words that, um, you know, the dictionary says should rhyme, but don’t rhyme for me.  And, uh, for instance, uh, I say “mad,” and that does not rhyme with “fad,” uh, in my speech.  The same thing with sad, so that’s, uh …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

COMMENTARY BY: Rick Thoman

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

The archive provides:

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• 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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