Alberta 8

Listen to Alberta 8, a 69-year-old man from Bawlf, Alberta, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 69

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/12/1950

PLACE OF BIRTH: Camrose, Alberta (but raised near Bawlf)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: White/Canadian with Norwegian and Swedish ancestry

OCCUPATION: farmer

EDUCATION: some college

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has traveled for holidays but has lived his whole life in Alberta.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

This subject wears a dental appliance that seems to affect articulation at times. Linguistic influences seem to lean a bit toward Norwegian, the first language of his grandparents.

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

RECORDED BY: Marie Warkentin

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/12/2019

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 Camrose, Alberta. I have lived on three different farms in the Bawlf area, uh, since that time. Uh, my best friend was two miles away on the road, or about — oh, a little over half a mile across the field. So, that was sort of my neighborhood. I went to school in a small town, which was three miles away. But I had to ride the bus for an hour to get there, in the mornings. Um, so it was a small school of 25 kids in a class, I suppose, on the average.

Um, my favorite teacher was probably Mrs. Peacock, my grade-four teacher. I think I learned more from her than probably any other single teacher, but there were some really good teachers in my elementary years at school.

Uh, still, I can still remember things that I learned back then, or I will recall something that I learned back then, from time to time, and I think wow, you know, I must have got that drilled into me. So, yeah …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/07/2020

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Notable qualities in this dialect are the upward inflection at the ends of phrases, a common Canadian tendency that appears most here when the subject is listing or describing things as part of an answer to a question. In addition, there seems to be a particularly strong pitch inflection perhaps reminiscent of the subjects’ Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, common in this part of Alberta.

Another strong Canadian tendency notable here is the vowel approaching a pure [o] pronounced in words such as “old,” “sorry,” and “official.”

The common Canadian articulation of [ʌʊ] in place of [aʊ] in “out” and “about” is also heard here.

There is no Liquid U in the words “Duke” and “tune.”

Final T and D are occasionally heard in “vet,” “goat,” and “lived,” as they often are in Canadian dialects, but there are missing in several other places, so it does not appear universal.

COMMENTARY BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/07/2020

The archive provides:

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• 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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