Belize 1

Listen to Belize 1, a 42-year-old woman from Belize Rural Central. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 42

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/09/1976

PLACE OF BIRTH: Belize City (but raised in Belize Rural Central)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Creole Belizean

OCCUPATION: medical officer/epidemiologist

EDUCATION: tertiary

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

The subject has spent about 12 years living outside Belize. She lived five years in Trinidad and Tobago, 18 months in Taiwan, nine months between Spain and Belgium, and the five years prior to this recording in Anguilla.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject says that, in Belize, your accent might be different depending upon your ethnicity (there are a number of ethnic groups in the country) and that growing up in the countryside, as well as spending time in cities, has affected her accent.

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

RECORDED BY: Tshari King

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/08/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Well, um, actually I never grew up in  a Belize City. I grew up, um, ten miles outside the city, um, near — it’s an, an area called, it’s — Belize Rural Central is the area, and, um, it’s between Belize City and Belmopan, which is the capital. Um, I grew up in what we, we used to call, fondly call the bush, because where we were living, ah, you never had anybody within earshot, like several yards or miles down the road for the nearest neighbor and so on. That has changed because we moved there when I made 2 and, um, that was like 1978, um, but m-my childhood was extremely happy; I had a lot of pets; I had a lot a horses, dogs, um, even a pet crocodile. I used to spend a lot t- — I was a quintessential tomboy, couldn’t get me into a dress for nothing. I think the first time, ah, me a wear a dress willingly, ah, me like 21 or something, you know so, so, I used to run round barefoot a lot. Used to have to run from mi pa, buh when he drive down the road because he used to say you know, as a girl, that never nice and not very ladylike, and then your foot bottom will get hard and then you might, roc- step on a snake and get bite and all kinda thing, but I just used to do what I used to want to do.

So our house make extremely happy; we never do much in the city after hours, so it was a nice, clean growing up, um, kinda innocent. I ain’ think we get a TV until, I no- can’t remember, the nineties, and even then we never have cable; we still don’t got cable at my house; we never really get internet like that neither, so it make quite quiet; so just like books and bush and animals and, and so on, so it quite nice. And then I did that, did do all of mi schooling a Belize up to, um, what you could say, sixth form? Which a like junior college, by American standards, and then for the first time I gone when a mi 19, to medical school, and then, that’s it.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Tshari King

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/11/2019

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.