Cameroon 3

Listen to Cameroon 3, a 32-year-old man from Douala, Cameroon. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 32

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/02/1981

PLACE OF BIRTH: Douala, Cameroon

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Cameroonian

OCCUPATION: pharmacy technician

EDUCATION: Subject is a college graduate with a master’s degree in business sdministration. At the time of this recording, the subject was working toward a degree in pharmacy.

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

Subject lived in Milan, Italy, for five years and then, in 2006, moved to Lawrence, Kansas, United States, where he was living when recorded.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Subject’s native language is French. Subject learned and spoke Italian while living in Milan, Italy.

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

RECORDED BY: Abby Hadel (under supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/11/2013

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, I was born in Cameroon. I grew up in Douala which is, eh, which is the second biggest city in my home country. I, uh, I stayed Douala until age 20 when I moved to Italy for educational purpose. I have been in Kansas City now for almost seven years and, um, I am a pharmacy student in at University of Kansas. School of Pharmacy, class of 2017. I am the dad of a almost 3-years-old, uh, girl, Audrey. And, um, I’m husband to [unclear speech]. And that’s it. Busy, busy.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Abby Hadel (under supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION: 24/11/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject commonly replaces the ð sound found at the beginning of a word with a /d/. For example, the words “the” and “thought” are pronounced [də] and [dɑət̪] instead of with the voiced /th/ used in General American speech. Also, the subject uses the brighter and less-open vowel of [i] in place of [ə] in certain words. Within Comma Gets a Cure, we find this trait in words such as “yellow,” “animal,” and “sentimental.” He lengthens and stresses the [u] sound in the majority of his speech. For example, the subject pronounces the word “goose” as such [guːs] while most GenAm speakers do not give the vowel sound extra significance and simply pronounce [gus]. The subject’s intonations vary immensly with that of GenAm. We find this variance in the word “morning,” where the subject stresses the second syllable instead of the first, which is what is common in GenAm speakers. He stresses many syllables that come at the end of words. His speech also is very glottalized, resulting in choppy dialogue and rhythm.    

COMMENTARY BY: Abby Hadel (under supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/11/2013

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.