South Africa 40

Listen to South Africa 40, a 65-year-old woman from Brits, North West Province (Western Transvaal), South Africa. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 65

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/06/1952

PLACE OF BIRTH: Brits, North West Province (then Western Transvaal)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Indian

OCCUPATION: accountant and business manager

EDUCATION: National Senior Certificate (Matric)

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: N/A

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject grew up in a South African Indian community in North West Province but received primary school education in Afrikaans from teachers from Eersterust and Mara “Coloured” communities. She also spoke Afrikaans with her mother and maternal aunts. In order to continue her education (at an English high school), her father arranged tutoring in English for her and her sister. The children communicated in Memon with their father, and in both Memon and English with their paternal grandfather.

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

RECORDED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/11/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

OK, I come from a predominantly Indian area, being an Indian. In — though it was Apartheid here, the surroundings that I lived was always Indian. Our school was Afrikaans; our principal and our deputy, well, one, one was a German. All our teachers were coloured teachers. But I would say my childhood was a very free childhood. I was a child that could do lot of things at a very young age because my mom wasn’t so well; at the age of 12 I could already make rotis, cook. But I was also very playful. I used to love the outdoors. But when I came out of school, I worked for my father. I would say I was good because my uncle that I — the work that I took over from my uncle — my uncle was sick. And most of the time, he showed me once or twice how to work with accounting machines, so because he used to work on a Saturday. So he showed me then how to do it, and I would say I learned that quite quickly, because when he w-when he wasn’t there I could run the statements. From this uncle, I had to learn to do his work, and his work was creditors and debtors. Because my father and they were six brothers. We had a big business; it was a good business. Maybe if you speak to your father, he’ll be able to tell you where Ali’s is and Brits Wholesalers, and — also if he knows Karani’s, he’ll know my grand-, my g-, er, grandfather too from my maternal, because they were Ahmed Brothers in Marikana.

Memon, our h- Indian dialect that w- my — we are from Raniwara, from Pa- part of Pakistan that speak Memon. We don’t speak — in Ra- … nowadays they all speak Urdu, but there are different dialects in Pakistan too. In Brits, you had the Porbandar; their language is different and so on, but, er, we were the Raniwaras. But to my mother, my mother’s sisters, we spoke Afrikaans. To my grandfather, we spoke English – my father’s – but very broken. My father we spoke our l- language; I don’t know why. The best part is when we’re in Saudi, they want to know now why can you speak Urdu, and he can speak Arabic, from where are you? I tell them we are from the global world; don’t worry about where we are, from where we are. Because here you lose; in Cape Town, I don’t speak Urdu, so you lose, but when I’m in Saudi again, I pick it up because there are a lot of Pakistanis. And as I said, we speak Afrikaans; we don’t speak Urdu or Memon; we speak Afrikaans. How — I don’t even have a mother that I — but my mother also, only recently we spoke to her in, in Memon; otherwise we always — my mother — we used to: “Mammie man, moenie nou pla nie, man, ek gaan nie nou dit doen nie!” That was the language we spoke to my mother. My mother used to like to send us to the garden: “Go get …” – we had a very, very big garden – “go get the danya for me, or go …” “Dit maak niks verskil aan jou kos nie, maar jy gaan vir my honderd maal in die garden stuur; gaan haal nou die chillis, gaan haal nou die danya, gaan haal nou …” I used to hate that. [Subject laughs.] Today I want danya in my food. So we used to speak a lot of Afrikaans to my mum.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/11/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

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

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).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.