Alabama 11

Listen to Alabama 11, a 20-year-old man from Montgomery, Alabama, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

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

PLACE OF BIRTH: Montgomery, Alabama

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: African-American

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject has lived in Montgomery, Alabama, for most of his life.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

His father was raised in the Bronx, in New York City, and that may have had an influence.

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

RECORDED BY: N/A

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

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, was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Raised in the suburbs of Montgomery County about 25 minutes from the city limits. Um, one thing I can recall from my childhood was: went to visit my friend. It was probably two days after New Year’s, and I was probably around 10 years old and we were playing with fireworks. Well, some kind of way I lit my firework and it landed in the field across the road, which started this massive fire because the field was so dry. And I just stood there in shock while everyone was running around me with buckets of water trying to put the fire out. And it was one of those pivotal moments in my childhood that, at the time, didn’t seem funny at all, but now people joke about it all the time. But, yeah, it’s definitely, definitely one of those things from your childhood that you will never forget.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mitchell Kelly

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/01/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject’s consonant action is relaxed, especially with regard to plosives.
There is a consistent use of a softened d where the tongue only reaches the back teeth and not the gum ridge. There is the typical Southern ɪ- i substitution as in dʒɪntəl for gentle and a slight drawl, which can be heard in words like implied (ɪmplɑd) smɑl for smile. You will also hear the substitution on ɪn for ɪŋ as in payin’ for paying. The speaker also employs a fairly consistent downward inflection pattern at the ends of sentences

COMMENTARY BY: N/A, Unicode trans. Dylan Paul

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).

 

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