England 109

Listen to England 109, a 37-year-old man from Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 37

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1982

PLACE OF BIRTH: Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white British

OCCUPATION: software developer

EDUCATION: degree level

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: none

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject grew up in a working-class background and went to a state school. He says he was always told by his mum to speak correctly. She didn’t like “common” words or the predilection for dropping the letter T, etc., and insisted that his sister and he were always polite.

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

RECORDED BY: Dale Brett (subject)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/02/2020

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Ever since I can remember, I’ve, um, always put on silly voices, um, accents, made up silly things to say, songs, to amuse the people around me. And when I started working, I met a man, my friend, who felt the same. I’d start doing a silly accent, and he’d join in, or he’d start doing something silly, and I’d join in, er, and we became firm friends. And we started a writing partnership, and we wanted to do a 1940s noir detective, because we really enjoyed noir films, but we wanted to make it more of a comedy. So we wrote a script for a pilot episode, if you’d like to call it that, that we’d release as a podcast — 10 minutes long — and there was just the two of us, but we had about eight characters, so we all had to double up and do silly character voices, and I really wanted to find out, because it’s 1940s noir detective — they speak really fast, but you know it’s sort of West Coast American. I wanted to find out what West Coast American actually sounded like, because is my version of West Coast American any good? Probably not, er, having grown up in Yorkshire. So I came on and found the IDEA, and it had fantastic samples of different people from around the world, which is ideal for what we wanted. And, er, I’d listen to the people from Los Angeles, California, and decided I wasn’t that for off actually with what I was doing. So that was quite good, and then, you know, having listened to a few other people from around the world, I thought maybe I’d submit myself.

So here we go; this is my accent. I grew up in Yorkshire; I’ve lived in Yorkshire my whole life. I’ve traveled around the world but not for any extended periods of time, so I don’t think I’ve picked up any, erm, various stray accents or anything. I suppose these days people watch a lot of American TV, and so, it’s er, it’s, uh, easier to pick up some Americanisms, but I don’t think it’s anything that affects the actual accent. Many people have, er, commented on how broad my accent is, er, but when you’re in your community and everybody speaks the same, nobody notices, you know, apart from when people are really slovenly and they drop their T’s. A joke we have, where I work — because I work in data — erm, there was a colleague and she always pronounces it: “da-a.” That’s how we say it: “da-a.” But really it’s data. So, there you go.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Dale Brett (subject)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION: 01/02/2020

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject says he has traveled many places around the world but has never lived outside Yorkshire and, therefore, doesn’t think other dialects and accents have influenced his speech much. But he does admit that he likes doing accents and “silly character voices.”

For more on the history and dialect of Yorkshire, see IDEA Founder and Director Paul Meier’s Yorkshire dialect product.

COMMENTARY BY: Cameron Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/02/2020

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.