Ethiopia 4

Listen to Ethiopia 4, a 23-year-old woman from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 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: 23

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/07/1995

PLACE OF BIRTH: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Black/Ethiopian

OCCUPATION: housekeeper and nanny

EDUCATION: completed 10th grade

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, until the age of 16, then moved to Cairo, Egypt, and has lived there since.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject has worked for people from Egypt, France, and the United States since she moved to Cairo. She also speaks Arabic proficiently. (Her mispronunciation of certain words could result from her being less familiar with them, rather than a characteristic of her accent.)

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

RECORDED BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/05/2018

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’m happy, what, anything. I’m happy my job. I’m happy helping my family, my small sisters. At least I have to take care of them for school, so — my family, my mom, dad, and I have two small sister, one brother; they live in America; they are OK. [She corrects herself]: Ah, they live in Ethiopia. My parents? Mm, my mom: She’s always staying home, but my dad, he have a job. Is, in Africa is not d – the lifestyle is different from America. So [inaudible] Mother: She have to take care of, she have to washing clothes, cooking and, and is not like — Ethiopia food is different, you know; we have to, you know the bread? Yeah. To make that things you have to take four, five days. We have to mix that flour with water, you have to keep it [for] three, four day. It’s a lot of things, a lot of work for [inaudible]. It’s not easy to, where we grow up.

[Subject speaks Amharic]: Ethiopia ayeru tasmami bahelu abkari.

[English translation: Ethiopia [has] nice air, nice culture.] [See the image below for an Arabic transcription of the phrase the subject speaks at the end of her unscripted speech.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/05/2018

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.