Greece 1

Listen to Greece 1, a man in his 30s from Pirgos, Pelopónnisos, Greece. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 30s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1960s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Pirgos, Greece

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Greek (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: graduate student

EDUCATION: N/A

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

He did his master’s degree in Edinburgh, Scotland, and started his Ph.D. in Birmingham, England. He was on an exchange program with the University of Kansas, in the United States, at the time of recording.

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): 05/12/2000

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, so, I was born in Greece; um, I am the uh, the youngest uh, of fo-, three, uh, in the family of three children and uh, I um, was born in a town called Pirgos, which is in the Pelopónnisos, close to Olympia; and uh, and then at the age of, uh,18 I went to the University in Thessaloniki, the second-biggest city in Greece uh, where I did my first degree. After that, uh, I went uh, to, um, Scotland, uh, where I did my master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh. And, uh, then I returned uh, to Greece. I did my military service, then I left Greece again, and uh, I went to the University of Birmingham, starting my uh [unclear], which I upgraded to a Ph.D., and uh, I’m here in Kansas on an exchange program, um, from that University. In Greece, it is compulsory for students to uh, pick uh, two foreign languages; um, one of them is uh, English so, uh, that’s how I had to learn, uh, English, if this, this answers the question. Uh, and I uh, started learning English at the age of uh, 7 or 8; I can’t remember. Uh, but let me, uh, finish with something very short: one line, um … [Subject speaks Greek.] … which is, uh, a line stolen from, uh, a very famous American novel.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Faith Harvey

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/03/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject, who started learning English at age 7, speaks very fluently, though with a slight trace of an English accent. It is a light, cultured sound with a few of the expected signature sounds of Greece. His “h” is frequently a velar fricative, for example.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/12/2000

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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