Bulgaria 2

Listen to Bulgaria 2, a 41-year-old woman from Sofia, Bulgaria, who also has spent time in Austria and the United States. 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: 41

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/07/1971

PLACE OF BIRTH: Sofia, Bulgaria

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Bulgarian

OCCUPATION: corporate general manager

EDUCATION: MBA

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

The subject was raised in Sofia, Bulgaria, but spent summers in Austria.  She moved to the United States in 2000 and was living in Michigan at the time of this interview.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She learned English from a private tutor, starting at age 6. She speaks, reads, and writes Bulgarian, Russian, Arabic, and Macedonian.

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

RECORDED BY: Annette Masson

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/07/2012

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Bulgaria is part of the European Union now, and … I – I often joke, here in the United States, how I survived communism.  In all fairness, communism was pretty much gone when I was old enough to comprehend what that really meant.  Ah, Berlin wall went down when … ‘89?  That’s when I graduated from high school, so obviously my life wasn’t all that impacted by it.  In … I grew up with privilege, because I grew up with my grandparents, and they were diplomats, so it … it was never a problem for me to travel.  Ah, and it … I mean, it’s…how I say it, I told you earlier, Bulgarians are loud.  They’re also very hospitable.  Like I say, you come to my house, I’ll feed you.  We’re extremely hospitable. e’ll … we’re … how I say it, we’re good people … if you look at the history of Bulgaria.  We never initiated any wars – no – people came through – did whatever destruction they could do – and moved.  And we’re just wearing our U.N. … you know … peace keeping force … helmets … so, all in all, I want to say Bulgarians are a peaceful and nice people, but a little loud.  I mean, really loud.  And, um … I don’t know how this would sound, maybe not very politically correct, but they remind me of the African American … ah … population in the United States, with … you know the … you drive your car, windows rolled down, music’s loud, heavy jewelry … I mean, the whole thing.  The reality of it is, is … it’s been twenty years.  People, my generation, who grew up with nothing, all of a sudden, came to money … new money.  And then, ah, there’re older people that are still stuck in time, and then there’re younger kids that … they’re raised by people my age, who are still mixing the two.  So I think there will be generations more to go before you can really see any difference.  So there’s this … in recent years, what I can tell you about Bulgarians is it’s a very interesting mixture.  There are people who were well educated, traveled before so they… they have different demeanor.  They can pass as … really, you know… brought up with a silver spoon, just … fine people – refined – if you will.  And then you have people who … they were smart, so, kudos to them, but, if you think about it, realistically, they probably have in life, more than was their right of birth.  I mean I know it sounds ridiculous, but in English you have caste segregation, right?  And, you’ve seen the movie … ah … “Slum Dog Millionaire,” right?  It’s really, really hard to be born in poverty and pull through and come to be successful.  And the first step is to believe it.  So a lot of people are still caught up in this, that Bulgaria is a small country and we don’t deserve to be happy.  There’s no chance. I mean, well, you know … the rest of the world is awesome and we’re just so poor, and so miserable, and even people that live in Bulgaria would still talk about it this way, how other countries are doing well and how our politicians are dumb.  So that’s one thing about Bulgarians and I would imagine probably applies to a lot of small countries as well. …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Annette Masson

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/07/2012

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.