England 21

Listen to England 21, a 21-year-old woman from Newcastle (Tyne and Wear) and North Bard (Northumberland) in northeast England. 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: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1979

PLACE OF BIRTH: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: drama student

EDUCATION: university

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

The subject moved to North Bard on Mill, Northumberland, at age 11.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject is currently in drama school. She considers herself a proper “Geordie.”

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

RECORDED BY: Katerina Moraitis

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/09/2000

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, well I may as well start early. I was born in the Princess Mary Hotel, a hot- not hotel, hospital, even, and that was, it’s on the banks of the Tyne, right, so I think that that means I’m a proper Geordie, ’cause you’re a proper Geordie if you are born on the banks of the Tyne; well not literally, but you know, so that means I’m a proper Geordie, and I lived in a place called Jarrow, otherwise known as Jarrow by posh people until I was 11; and my dad’s from Jarrow originally, and all of his family are, and my mam’s from a place called Fellon, which is also near Newcastle. And my grandma and all her family are from there, so I lived there until I was 11, went to school there and everything; and then I moved to Northumberland, and my mam and dad bought a hotel there called The Twice Brewed Inn; and it’s in a place called Twice Brewed, which is near Bardon Mill, and it’s right on Hadrian’s Wall, so when I first went there and went to school it was like a big culture shock from like living in the town, and went to like this countryside in the middle of nowhere – strange farm, children, and all the rest of it, and they all called me Spuggy; you know, like Spuggy off Byker Grove, it’s a character off Byker Grove, which is like this programme, which is about kids who live in Newcastle, and they’ve all got really strong Geordie accents like “[i:] why aye man” and all that. So, ehm, they called me Spuggy ’cause I had a really strong Geordie accent. but since I was 11, since I’ve grown up there, my accent’s kind of faded a bit, and it’s not as strong Geordie anymore, which I have issues with ’cause like my parents’ accents are quite strong unless like they are on the phone and trying to be posh, and so my accent is not as strong as them. So I do worry about losing my accent a bit – and dialect and things – so living in Northumbria, in Northumberland, ehm, I kind of picked up some, some of the dialect and things from there and picked up some of the accent, like, ehm, the kind of dialect that they have in Northumberland, well in, if people are from like Carlisle, and that like runs into the Haltwhistle area, they often say “eh” after every sentence; so I say “ah right, I’m going down to town, eh,” and “I’m going here, eh.” And it is actually after every single thing they say they say “eh,” so I actually started doing that, which my brother and my parents kind of ribbed me for mercilessly. And then I picked up, like, some of the, some of the other things they say, like, ehm, “kets” and kind of, instead of “sweets,” and I think a lot of things that are also kind of, quite Scottish, because it’s up nearer to Scotland.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Christian Jensen

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/2005

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.