Croatia 2

Listen to Croatia 2, a 28-year-old woman from Istria and Zagreb, Croatia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 28

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/02/1983

PLACE OF BIRTH: Osijek, Croatia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: professor of philosophy and religious science

EDUCATION: master’s and post-doctorate work

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: 

The subject started learning English in second grade of primary school, and learned it in school for 11 years; however, English taught in Croatian schools is 70 percent about grammar. Influences include watching a lot of cartoons, movies and TV shows in American English; reading a lot of books in English; and for the last month and a half improving her fluency by using Lessac voice and body work.

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

RECORDED BY: Robin Carr

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/03/2012

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So I was born in Osijek, and that is, uh, town in the northeast of Croatia. And my father was born near there, in Vladislavci, where I lived for the, uh, first three years of my life. My mother on the other hand, uh, is from Sigetec; that’s a village near Koprivnica which is in the northwest part of Croatia; and, um, my father grandparents were ah Austro-Hungarian, so in our family we have last names like Friedrich, Tott, Sabo; and, um, for the first, ah, three years in Vladislavci, my parents had, um, well, let’s call it a tavern; it was called Yu (like Yugoslavia). Ah, I am not sure if tavern is right word for it; I think it’s maybe a little too fancy but I cannot remember a different one at this moment. And, uh, they told me that when I was little that I used to, uh, walk around the tables and drink, uh, the beers left in the bottles from the customers, and they say that my first words were uh “give me beer” or “ daj pivo,” so, uh, I don’t remember much from that period from my first, uh, three years. And when I was, uh, about three, three and a half, we moved to Istria, to Umag, and that is a long way from Vladislavci, and, uh, I lived in Umag; I went there to kindergarten and primary school. And, uh, until I was about 9, I live in the old part of Umag, and most of my friends were, uh, Roma, so, yeah, we had a pretty loud and good times together. And I have to say in Istria we don’t have like, uh, nomad gypsies or nomad Roma; um, they all had restaurants or little gift shops, uh, stuff like that. Um, Croatia is … it’s, is very specific; each part has really, uh, different, uh, vibe, like, uh, Slavonci people who live in Slavonia where Osijek is, they’re very laid back and even talk slower. Like, um, they would say, “ma hajde, pusti ga” for let him be or let him go, and in Istria the same sentence would go like, “ma pushti ga cha” (ma pušti ga ča), so, yeah, I would say it’s practically a different language.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Robin Carr

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/03/2012

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject was born in Osijek, Croatia, and lived in a village near Osijek, region Slavonia, called Vladislavci, where her father is from. Her mother is from Sigetec, near Koprivnica, which belongs to Podravina region. From age 3 to 18, subject lived in Istria; first in Umag, and then in Pazin for four years. At the age of 19, she went to Zagreb and lived there for nine years. She had been living in Rijeka for the past month and a half when this recording was made. Her resonation is similar to the Russian placement toward the back of the throat. Vowel substitutions: had moved toward “hed”; happy moves toward “heppy”; family moves toward “family”; dog moves toward “dohg”; hit moves toward “heet”; and diphthongs are not used. Consonant substitutions: aspirate quality of the H (example: her); voiced TH pronounced as a D (example: father, other); lack of the voiced or the unvoiced TH (it’s absent in the Croatian Language); S endings move toward Z (example: fleece, goose, is); and R can be rolled (example: Roma). Lastly, sometimes stress is on the second syllable.

COMMENTARY BY: Robin Carr

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/03/2012

The archive provides:

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• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
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