England 33

Listen to England 33, a 69-year-old man from Bideford and Plymouth, Devon, in southwest 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: 69

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1932

PLACE OF BIRTH: Bideford, north Devon

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: retired chief executive of a food-processing company

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject was born and raised in Bideford and has lived in various parts of Devon, notably Plymouth.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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): 2001

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, I was born in, uh, Bideford, north Devon, in 1932. Uh, and, uh, I lived there with my parents, uh, uhh, until I, uh, left school. Uh, and when I went to Plymouth to work, uhn, in south Devon. Uh, from there I did national service in the Royal Airforce and returned to Plymouth. Uh, then, uh, having met Mary, uh, on a visit home, uh, I decided that I would like to live and work back in north Devon, and so moved to north Devon. Uh, in due course I, uh, was into the, uh, meat and animal by-products, uh, business, uh, and stayed in that until, uh, I retired in 1997. [clears throat] Since that time I’ve, uh, done some consultancy work in the same industry, uh, still doing some in fact but shall cease doing that at the end of this year and shall become entirely a man of leisure. Uhh, Mary and I were, uh, married, uh, over forty years ago and lived initially in Appledore in a, in a small cottage. Uh, then we moved to, uh, Barnstable about, uh, ten miles away where we were both then working. Uh, we then moved back to Bideford for a, uhhh, for about ten years and then twenty-five years ago we bought this house in Northam, uh, uhh; Northam is a good compromise for us; it’s a pleasant village of reason — reasonable size and is, uh, is precisely midway between uh Northam and — uh, between Bideford and, and Appledore. Uh, it’s a very old village with, with a lot of a, a lot of history. Uh, the church which is, uh, right near the house here, uhh, was built, uh, ahh, around I think, uh, eight-hundred or more years ago, uh, perhaps longer because, uh, there is a sign in the church which shows that a, an annex to it, which effectively doubled its size, was built in eleven-hundred and n- something. Uh, Northam has got a a good deal bigger, uhh, in recent years, as with most places. Th- the west country is attractive to, uh, people leaving the, uh, the cities. Uh, property is relatively, uh, inexpensive, uh, in the area. And there has therefore been a lot of building. But there are still many old buildings and, and this — our house is is one, uh, it is over two hundred years old.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Alex Haynes and Spencer Holdren

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/02/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject has a very mild Devon dialect, as is often the case in subjects higher up on the social and economic ladder. You will hear little of the rhoticity that marks the speech of England 31 and 32; the initial “h” is never dropped, and the vowels are much closer to Received Pronunciation. The exception that marks this subject as a Devonian is the vowel in private, implied, tried, etc., and his low back starting position for this diphthong is in common with England 31 and 32. He has lived in various parts of Devon, notably Plymouth, but was born and raised in Bideford, like them. For more information on British dialects, visit PaulMeier.com.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2001

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.