Russia 1

Listen to Russia 1, a woman in her 50s from St. Petersburg, Russia, who has also lived in the United States. 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: St. Petersburg, Russia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Russian/white

OCCUPATION: university professor

EDUCATION: We don’t know specifics but can assume a university degree in education.

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

The subject was born and raised in St. Petersburg. She came to Kansas, in the United States, with no English, in her twenties. She lived there, teaching Russian drama at the university level, for the next thirty years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s English is accented with her native Russian language and the sounds of Kansas.

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:

Um, I went to the university there, studying German, um, German language, language and literature, and there I also learnt some French and Latin. Um, I had never learnt any English before I came to America, and, um, the place where I landed, was no English whatsoever, was Kansas. Um, I have never had any formal training in English, and, um, I learnt my English basically from my students because a few months after I had arrived, um, professor of Russian at K-State was killed in an accident; that happened in the middle of the year, of the school year, and they asked me to pick up his courses, and that’s where I started, when I started to learn my English, and, um, I’m still learning.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Karina Lemmer

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/04/2008

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 accent, 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:

• 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.