Mississippi 2

Listen to Mississippi 2, a 52-year-old woman from Grenada, Mississippi, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 52

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

PLACE OF BIRTH: Grenada County, Mississippi

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: African-American

OCCUPATION: hosiery factory worker

EDUCATION: high school

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

The subject has lived in Grenada, Mississippi, her entire life.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s roots in Mississippi are deep, and she’s able to trace her lineage back to her great-great-grandfather, who was a slave in the same county in which she now lives.

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

RECORDED BY: Krista Scott

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH:

[wen̪ə ˈsɔnlaɪt ˈstɹæɛk̚s ˈɹæɪnˈdɹɑps ɨn̪ðə ˈeɐ | d̪e̥ ɪ ˈʔɛʔ ʔɛz ə ˈpɹɨzm̩ ɛnd ˈfɒːm ʌ ˈɹɛɪmˌbou ‖ d̪ə̥ ˈɹɛɪmbou ɪəz ə dɘ̪ ˈvɪˑʒn̩ ʔɔβ ˈwaɪʔ ˈlaɪʔ ɨntə ˈmenɘ ˈbjuɾɘfɫ̩ ˈkɵləz ‖ ˈdɪ̪iːz ˌtʰɛɪk̚ də̪ ˌʃɛ ɪp ɔβ ə ˈlɒːŋː ˈɹæʊn ˈʔɑʔ | wɨt̪̚ ɨt̚ ˈpʰɛeːð ˌhaː ʔəˈbɵː | ʔɛn ʔɨt̪̚z̪̊ ˈtuˑ ˈɪɨn əˈpʰɛəʔlɘ bɘˌjɑːn̪ də̪ ˈhɑːɹɨˌzɒ̰m̰̆ ‖ de̪ ː ʔɪəz ʔəˈkoːɾɘn tʊ̪ ˈleːʤɨn | ə ˈboːəl̆ɘn ˌpɑɾ̹ əv ˈɡouːl ɛʔ ˈwʌn ˈɪːə̆ ‖ ˈpʰipl ˈlʊʔk̚ | bɵʔ ˈnou wən ˈeβə ˈfæːnz ˈɨʔ ‖ wən ə ˈmæ̆eˑən̆ ˈlʊk̚ fo ˈsɵmˌtæ̪ ẽɲ biˈjɒːn ˌhɨz ˈɹɪiʤ̊ | hɘs ˈfɹɪəns sɛɘ ˌhɪ əz ˈlʊkɘɱ fʷɑ ðə ˈpʰɑɾ o ˈɡoul ɛt̪̚ ɨ ˈɪː̰n ə də̪ ˈɹɛɪmˌbou]

If the phonetics are not displaying properly for you, see this PDF.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Santiago Rodriguez

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/01/2008

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I’ve lived in Grenada all of my life an’ worked here in Grenada.  I’ve worked at the hosier’ mill, where we make pantyhose fo’ the last 32 years, an’, well, let’s face it, my life … [Interviewer: Uh-huh] hosier’ mill, uh, church, grocer’ store, then back home.  An’ I have, uh, one chil’, one son ruther.  He’s, well, he’ll be 28 the 17th of June.  An’ I also have, uh, several stepchi’ren, with they all mine.  An’ also I have one granddaughter in college right now.  She’s a senior at Old Miss.  My great-great gran’daddy was born as a slave, an’ he was reared in Grenada County.  An’, an’ it just — I mean — the — Grenada County is the onliest place we ever lived, tha’s all.  That’s the bottom line.  So we didn– we had met an’ ev’rythang, but we didn’ do too much cou’tin’ ’cause my daddy, he was one o’ those older one’ he didn’ care too much about all tha’, uh, cou’tin’. In oth’ words, he wasn’ ready for me to lea’e home.  I don’ care how old I was; he thought I was a baby, I guess.  An’, by the way, he 89 now, an’ I’m 52, so you can see the age diff’n’.  OK, uh, well we was goin’ to get marrie’, so what we done — I was livin’ in the country an’ he wa’ livin’ in town, so we sent li’l messages back an’ fo’ward from work where he could get it.  So we made plans to get married, an’ we was in town, an’ I wen’ over to the, uh, minister’s house, where we was goin’ to get married at, an’ got married.  An’ ’en, later on, he came out to my daddy’ house an’ got me.  So that was it. …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/09/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Some of the predominant dialect features are: the omission of most final consonants; substitution of /d/ for “th” in words such as “that,” “the” and “those”; vowel glides on words such as “live,” “mill,” “twelve” and “mile”; “ing” endings consistently reduced to “in”; omission of /r/ in final position, and in the medial position on words such as “courting” (“kou:tin”) and “forward” (“fahwuh”); substitution of “th” for final /s/ in selected words such as “Ole Miss”; dropping final /s/ on possessive pronouns and many plural words (“he eighty-nine now”); special pronunciation on “children” (“chirrun”), “several” (“sev’l”) and “only” (“onliest”).

COMMENTARY BY: Krista Scott

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

The archive provides:

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• 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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