Barbados 1

Listen to Barbados 1, a 40-year-old woman from Christ Church, Barbados. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/12/1972

PLACE OF BIRTH: St. Michael, Barbados (but raised in Christ Church)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: African (Black Caribbean)

OCCUPATION: lecturer

EDUCATION: doctoral

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

Trinidad and Tobago

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Travel has influenced the subject, primarily in terms of vocabulary.

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

RECORDED BY: Dylan Paul

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/01/2013

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, so Barbados: very interesting island to, to, to be born on. First of all you’re talking about one hundred and sixty-six square miles, which is not much. But the interesting thing about Barbadians is, is that, we feel, if you live in Christ Church, which is at the bottom — that’s where my family lived eventually, but I was born in St. Michael, which is next door, ahm, yes of course at the hospital. But seriously speaking, [laughs] my mom’s family was from the same St. Michael, not too far away from the hospital. Ahm, and the area is what one would call a, it, it’s, it’s a ghetto, but it, there, as with most ghettos you always have the part that’s the good part and then there’s the part that never gets better. Ahm, so we grew up on the side that was the good part. And, um, my mom would be considered ahm, having come from town, as they would say. So she came from town. So this is, uh, back to my point how the small island, even though it’s small, you see places as having this, these great distances. So mommy came from town and Daddy came from the country, which is what Christ Church would be, St. Phillip would be country. Um, and so when you live in Christ Church and you meet somebody who lives in St. Lucy, which is at the top of the island, and, “so you live real far, boy. [laughs] That is, that is far. How you, how you getting up there?” So basically it’s, it’s is a, an island where, as much as it’s, it’s, it’s small, people in other words, all Bajans don’t know each other.

Ahm, Barbadians would be Bajans. So I am a Bajan, and we speak a Bajan dialect. So your Bajan dialect now is a corruption of English. It’s, it’s broken English, basically. So, ahm, lemme see.

[Subject begins to demonstrate Bajan dialectical qualities.] “So how you,” which is to say “how are you?” And the “how you” would be — the intonation is, is more about concern. If it’s real concern they would say, “So how you do? I ain’t see you for so long. So what happened the other day? Where, where, where, where they carry you? Where they tek you?” Ahm, tek is basically to say, “Where did they take you?” Ahm, so it is broken English as well as shortening actual words. So when I say take, instead of take, it would have been tek.

Barbadians we, we emphasize our Rs. Um, as a matter of fact when, for the most part, when we talk we, we emphasize whatever the word is. We are very particular about calling a word correctly. Ahm, there’s a word that I, like, OK, in Barbados, ahm, we would say, “Caribbean.” We say, “Caribbean,” but living here now I say, “Caribbean.” Which most of the rest of the Caribbean does. But Barbados would say, “Caribbean.” So if you notice, we are very particular about saying it as it is. I remember my son, when he started to talk, he would say, “Mommy, please, can I get some water?” And my mother would be like, “No, Xavier, it is not water. It’s water.” And so, even though they’re Trinidadian, [laughs] they, they call their Rs [laughs].

TRANSCRIBED BY: Dylan Paul

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/01/2013

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): 26/01/2013

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.