Cyprus 1

Listen to Cyprus 1, a man in his 20s from Cyprus. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1970s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Cyprus (exact location unknown)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Greek-Cypriot

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

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

Subject has lived in Lawrence, Kansas, United States.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He is well traveled in Europe, North Africa, and the United States. He learned English from his aunt, a native of London, England.

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

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

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 come from Cyprus, which is an island in the Mediterranean. Um, how is life? Life is at the beach most of the time. People drink a lot of coffee, a lot of uh, kebab. We love music, we love, um, partying. We are supposed to learn how to speak English and French in, um, from starting with Jr. High, I think and then continuing in high-school but most of the people take uh, private English lessons from uh, people from England uh, because they want to stu- study abroad either in England or the U.S. So. My teacher was an aunt of mine, actually, she was married to my uncle who met uh, her in London, so she came back, and she that’s what she does. She teaches, like, private English lessons. So with, with, with somebody from London, I guess. And I started doing that like, um, nine years before I left home. So, was like eleven years ago. And I live here for two years but, in Kansas, Lawrence. But, have visited like, uh, New York, and LA, and Arizona for a while. Uh, but for periods like less than a month. And I spent two months in Italy some time later and uh, stayed in London for a month and I’ve also been to Morocco, Tunisia, like three or for more months or something working. I speak Italian like, uh, wouldn’t say like good or something, but I can manage if I’m in Italy or something. I used to be like, uh, not that fluent but, I could like manage with like French too because I had to like cause French won’t talk, won’t speak to you in English or anything. You have to speak French or something, so I had to do that, but I’m not very good at it, but that’s basically, and I speak Greek.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Anthony J. Bernal II

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/02/2008

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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