Washington 8
Listen to Washington 8, a 72-year-old woman from Walla Walla, Washington, United States. 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: 72
DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/05/1953
PLACE OF BIRTH: Walla Walla, Washington
GENDER: female
ETHNICITY: Caucasian/White
OCCUPATION: retired/former science education consultant
EDUCATION: doctorate degree
AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:
The subject has never lived outside Washington. She has lived in Walla Walla her entire life except for three years in Seattle and two years on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound.
OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:
The subject spent a lot of time with grandparents who had also lived in Walla Walla all of their lives.
The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.
RECORDED BY: Nick Torres
DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/01/2026
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 [subject chuckles] because I was surrounded by family, I think that particularly influenced how much I love being here and why the kids — our daughter has now returned and is living in the little house behind us, and Brad, I know, loves coming back to Walla Walla, as do his sons, because they have come back each year, including when they were in utero, so that’s a pretty fun thing. They usually spend a chunk of time here because Brad normally tries to dovetail it with some theatre that he can, uh, participate in, which is really nice.
Um, because I have two sisters, both of them living here; one lives next door, which is the home I actually grew up in; the house we’re in now is the one where my grandparents lived. But, uh, it goes back many generations. In fact, Brad’s sons are the sixth, er, seventh generation. Brad and his sister are the sixth generation in this family home and the compound itself. So it’s got a lot of wonderful history; we always say that it’s, um, kind of a great place to live because we know all of the ghosts are really happy that we’re here.
My sister, er, my, uh, daughter thinks that the house may be potentially a little haunted. We — I don’t think I’ve ever discovered that; you may have to ask Terry that one. But, anyway, um, growing up, it was kind of Leave it to Beaver, short of my mother’s death, which clearly was not. But, um, went to the grade school, which is just a half a block down the street, so I walked to school each day and home for lunch in those days; and, um, and, um, just a — lots of neighborhood friends that lived just behind us, on the street directly behind us and around the corner, so it was a really fun, wholesome kind of group of kids and their families. The family scenario here: We had neighborhood potluck picnics in the summer and, uh, just, it was really a wonderful growing-up.
TRANSCRIBED BY: Nick Torres
DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/01/2026
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.
IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive




