Northern Ireland 1

Listen to Northern Ireland 1, a woman in her 50s from Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 50s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1940s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Derry, Northern Ireland

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Irish/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: teacher

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject spent most of her life as a Catholic nun, teaching in schools in the London area. She had emigrated to the United States just a few months before this recording was made in Lawrence, Kansas.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject was raised as a Catholic in Catholic schools.

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

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Derry, Derry city, and that already tells you an awful lot about me, that is if you know anything about Northern Ireland, because had I said I came from Londonderry, then you’d know I was a Protestant, but because I said I came from Derry, that means I’m a Catholic, and because I was a Catholic it meant that I had a Catholic education, went to a Catholic school and I moved into a Catholic job, um, which was, of course, restricted by the,  then, um, historical, social, and political situation in the north of Ireland.  I left the north of Ireland when I was 18. That’s probably about hmm,15 years ago [laughs], um, many years ago, anyway, and then I worked in London and I have been in England for … was in England for, mm,good grief, probably about 30 years [laughs], and um, then I came to America ’bout, um, 18 months ago. And it’s only since I come here that I realize I talk, I talk is totally different foreign language [laughs] and, um, find it quite difficult sometimes to make yself understood. For example, last night I said to my husband, “That … her name is Ida [idə]. whatever it is.” He said “Who?”  I said “Eda” [idə]. He said “What?” I said “Ida [idə], I-d-a,” and he said, “You you meant  “Ida” [idə].  “No”, I said, “I meant Ida” [aɪdɐ]. “Well,” he said, “It’s Ida” [idə].  I said, “No, well you say it vitamin [vɪtɐmɪn], and I say vitamin [vaɪtɐmɪn]. You say tomato [təʊmeɪtəʊ], and I say tomato [təʊmatəʊ]. So, um, lots of little things like that …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Faith Harvey

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/03/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

If you are a dialect researcher, or an actor using this sample to develop your skill in the accent, please see my instruction manual at www.paulmeier.com. As the speaker in this sample is a unique individual, it is highly unlikely that she will conform to my analysis in every detail. But you will find it interesting and instructive to notice which of my “signature sounds” and “additional features” (always suggested only as commonly heard features of the accent) are widely used by most speakers of the dialect, and which are subject to variation from individual to individual.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/10/2016

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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