Croatia 1

Listen to Croatia 1, a 24-year-old man from Zagreb and Dubrovnik, Croatia, who has also lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 24

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1983

PLACE OF BIRTH: Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina (formerly Mostar, Yugoslavia)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

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

He’s lived in Dubrovnik, Split, Zagreb, and Markasa, all in Croatia.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He attributes his English skills to an American TV channel, the Cartoon Network, which he watched as a child. His accent is almost imperceptible.

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

RECORDED BY: Mandy Fox

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

OK, so I was born, uh, in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina; uh, actually it was Mostar, Yugoslavia, and then after the war it became Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. But before that happened I moved to, uh, Dubrovnik, which is now Croatia, and I lived there till I was 8. And then, since my parents were crazy lunatics that loved moving around with, with their jobs and so I ended up in Zagreb which was, uh, the capital of Croatia only to, after the was started and all happened, they decided to go back to Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. So, I’m kind of mixed up about where I’m from, but I feel that both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are my home countries. Oh, it’s beautiful. Both Mostar is, uh, an old city. It was formed, I think, in 16th century and, um, it’s, it, it has very strange combination of, uh, Ottoman architecture and, um, Western architecture and a lot of the buildings from 16th century are preserved especially in, uh, city, like, central city area, which is very touristy. There’s this famous bridge that’s called Old Bridge and, um, lots of tourists from all over the world come and see it and that bridge was actually, uh, is, is on UNESCO’s, uh, list of World Heritage and, um, I should show pictures to my friends sometime because I never do that.  Um, as for Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik it was, uh, it, it’s not very far away from Mostar. It’s about two hours away. It’s south. It’s on the coast and, um, city was basically a city-state and it was a big competitor for Venetian-state. Venetians tried to take over many, many times, but their army was never strong enough and, uh, was famous merchants’ spot and, uh, very, very wealthy city throughout history. Lots of famous, um, writers, and poets, and painters were from that city and, um, uh, it, it’s huge touristy spot, like, I think it’s the most popular one in Croatia and, uh, lots of cruises come over and, um, I’m very happy that Croatian coast’s not very famous in the world because, um, capitalism hasn’t completely taken over so, all, all of the old cities, all of the old architecture, and mentality of the people has been preserved and it’s not just crazy money chase and it’s, it’s a lil’ paradise, I, I, I have to say. I’ve seen a lot of coasts, but Croatian is the most beautiful and I’m not just saying it because I’m from there.  Uh, as for Zagreb, I really hate that city even though it’s, it’s huge, it’s beautiful, it’s in the capital. A lot of things are going there. Lots of theatre, lots of theatre festivals and things like that, but it’s so far north and, um, weather is, uh, very cold, much colder than I enjoy it and, um, just mentality of people is a lil’ bit different so, I just, I prefer coast better.  Oh, I have, my, I, I completely adopted Mostar and, um, Dubrovnik accent which is very southern. We like to, uh, talk , like, we stretch all of our sounds and Zagreb it’s all very choppy. Chop, chop, chop, chop. And so, um, I, I actually recognize that when I speak, from people who are from south, even from the the U.S., like, it seems like it’s something that keeps occurring relatively regularly, that people from the south tend to have longer sounds. I don’t know why’s that. Maybe we’re just lazy or because of all the warmth. I don’t know what it is, but we talk, its, its pretty, people who are from Croatia can always recognize where I’m from. … Yes, yea, their accents, actually, I’ve been told before that my accent is, uh, lil’ bit messed up, like even, from like, Croads, like Herzegovinians that it is, um, lil’ different and I think that it, it happened because of all the moving and, I don’t know, I’m just not, I adopt, uh, lil’ bit of each of those accents, but it, it becomes a lil’ bit mutanty, so yea.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mandy Fox

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/2007

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).

 

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