Bahamas 1

Listen to Bahamas 1, a 31-year-old man from Nassau, Bahamas. 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: 31

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/11/1985

PLACE OF BIRTH: Nassau, Bahamas

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Bahamian

OCCUPATION: restaurant manager

EDUCATION: high school graduate

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: none

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject was trained for eight years under the Professional Guild of English Butlers. He also spent a lot of his childhood with his great-grandmother, who is originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, in the United States. Although he has never resided permanently in the United States, he has spent five months at a time in both Florida and Texas over the years.

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

RECORDED BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/10/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Boy, you wouldn’t believe: Mummy just call me and tell me she’s [she was] downtown, and she say why [while] she was drivin’ downtown, in the tick [thick] of traffic in the middle o’ a Sa’day [Saturday] afternoon, she was tryin’ to take ovuh [over] a car, and she accidentally bump a horse! But you wouldn’t believe: Ain’t nuttin’ happen to the horse. But the horse kick Mummy door right in. So I say, “Mummy, what happen to the horse?” She say, “I ain’t know; I pull off n’ gone!” But we call and we find out from some people who work downtown — dey say ain’t nuttin’ happen to da horse; dey’s actually hopin’ errytin’ OK wid [with] my Mummy, because da horse kick my Mummy car so hard, it mash da whole door in.

But I had ta’ have a talk wid’ Mummy and tell Mummy she gotta be more patient on da’ road and stop bein’ so biggity [Bahamian word for “bold” or “boisterous,” most often used when speaking of women]! She’s be biggity too much! Impatient, always in a rush. And look what it cause. It cause da’ horse kick her whole door in. Na’ [now] she gotta go ‘round da’ corna’ by Rex — them the body man — and try get ‘em to pull dat big dent out her door. And dat can cos’ [cost] me money now, ’cause ya know Mummy always broke. But such is life. I jus’ hope the horse is OK for sure, an’ I can get Mummy car fix.

[Subject speaks Patwa]: Bey, it spryin’, bey. I ain’ wan’ get wet. Tees jungless too tingsy. Dey always lookin’ fa sumtin’.

[English translation: Boy, it’s sprinkling, boy. I don’t want to get wet. These loose women are too materialistic. They’re always looking for money.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/10/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

A note about the subject’s ethnicity: In the Bahamas, he would be called a “Conchy Joe,” which is slang for a light-skinned Bahamian. The word “conchy” refers to conch, a shellfish native to these islands, whose flesh is generally an off-white color.

I asked him if there was a proper name for the local dialect, but he said there was not. They just call it “Bahamian Dialect.”

For more information on this dialect, visit https://soundcloud.com/sarah-nichols-1/bahamian-translations-from-lukka-kairi. The recording is a series of translations from the Bahamian dialect to Common English.

COMMENTARY BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/11/2017

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.