Costa Rica 2

Listen to Costa Rica 2, a 55-year-old man from Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, and New York City, in 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: 55

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/06/1959

PLACE OF BIRTH: Puerto Limón, Costa Rica

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Costa Rican

OCCUPATION: production assistant

EDUCATION: Subject finished 9th grade in Costa Rica.

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

He was born and raised in Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, until age 15, and lived in San Jose, Costa Rica, from age 15 to 20. He had been living in the Green Point neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, for 20 years at the time of this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/03/2014

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, I was born in the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, Puerto Limón. Mostly, of, uh, people came there to build the railroads, before they start building Panama Canal. When the UNI, the United Food Company, start building railroads ‘cause there was a lot of … they start building banana plantations, and then they start bringing cocoa, and stuff so, we’re mostly descended from that. Caribbean, Caribbean people, you know. I myself is a … what you guys call in this place? Uh, mixed breed? Costa Rica they want to call us mulattos, which I do not, I do not agree with that term. Because “mulatto” is a Latin word for mule, so, you know, it derived from, that so I don’t like to call myself that. I consider myself a human being of color, that’s it. You know, that’s about it the places are — Caribbean area, a lot of tourists come down there; some of them come to surf; some of them come for the, the weather. You know the country’s, uh, tropical country — depends on the area you at. ‘Cause if you in San Jose or in the the plains on the top of the capital, they are a lot more colder. And Costa — in Limon, most of the weather is tropical, like in an island. It’s not an island, but that’s the way the weather is.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Shawnia Keith (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/05/2014

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.