India 10

Listen to India 10, a 31-year-old man from various places in northern India. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 31

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1977

PLACE OF BIRTH: Hyderabad, India (but raised all over northern India)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Indian (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: management consultant

EDUCATION: Ph.D. in mathematics

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

Subject lived for about two years each in Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai (which he calls by its former name, Bombay) and Bangalore, in addition to spending time in a boarding school in northern India (about two hours away from Delhi). He then lived in Sussex, England, for three years, London for five years, and New York for two years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

His first language is Indian English. He also speaks Hindi, as well as some Bengali and some French.

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

RECORDED BY: Amy Stoller

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/06/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, what I like about America, I think, is a sense of possibility. So very much seems like, you know, if you’re smart, people are willing to give you a chance. Um, less so based on where you’ve come from and, and so on and so forth, but what you have to offer. And, I — I think that’s hugely positive. It’s, it’s probably becoming like that now in other parts of the world, like Europe, and, and England and so on. But still, growing up, I always felt, you know, sort of like, you had your place. You know, and, uh, maybe it’s not true, maybe it was just a perception. But I definitely, I don’t feel that perception here, in the US, you know, I f — I, I, I feel it to be much more open, open society, um — people are friendlier, here, than I, you know, than I experienced back, back in England. Uh … the less … it’s a pros — I mean it’s a, it’s a positive and a negative. In England they have sort of preconceived notion of you, because I mean in — but that makes it s-s-s-sort of more comfortable because they know something about you, and they know something about your background, but it also kind of limits you, because they sort of, you know, just put some, you know they put a frame around you and say, This is how you are. Whereas America, on the flip side, um, most often people have no idea about my background and, and really what it means to be an urban Indian and so on growing up. Uh, which sometimes can mean, you know, there’s a disconnect, because you don’t connect that closely. But it also means that they sort of don’t make assumptions about you and will get to know you on an individual basis and then judge you. Rather than just saying you know, you know, This guy’s an Indian guy, so therefore he should be, you know, like this, or this, or this.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Amy Stoller

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Lack of aspiration in word-initial and syllable-initial unvoiced stop-plosives [p, t, k].  Palm is pronounced [pɑːm]rather than [pʰɑːm]lunatic is pronounced [lunətɪk] rather than [lunətʰɪk].

Listeners unaccustomed to lack of aspiration in these sounds will receive the impression that the speaker is substituting the voiced stop-plosives [b, d, g]. This feature is not invariable. For example, speaker tends to aspirate /p/ if immediately followed by /r/, as in private practice, or /l/, as in plain.

Consonant R frequently, but not always, realized as a tap [ɾ]. Sarah Perry is pronounced [sɛəɹə pɛɾi].

Rhoticity is variable. Working is pronounced [wɜːkɪŋ]; deserted is pronounced [dɪzɝtɪd] There does not appear to be any rule for when speaker is likely to pronounce the Vowel R; he is simply inconsistent.

N is usually pronounced with tongue blade at front of alveolar ridge, rather than center; tongue does not actually touch teeth.

Occasional substitution of labiodental approximant [ʋ] for [w]; willing is pronounced [ʋɪlɪŋ]. To listeners unfamiliar with this accent, it may seem that speaker is using [v], but there is no contact of the lip with the teeth.

Open A sound in the BATH lexical set (aka the “Ask List”); can’t is [kɑːnt], not [kænt].

Use of Liquid U following [d, t, n] is inconsistent.

[t͡ʃ] occasionally simplified to [ʃ].

Occasional simplification of final consonant clusters; most becomes mos’, world becomes worl’. Since this feature is also common in informal speech in both British English and American English speakers, it is not necessarily related to speaker’s personal background.

Speaker identifies heavily with England, which is where his parents were living when they met and married (before returning to India), and also where he had his university education. Speech is very rapid, which accounts for “dropped” or “swallowed” small words; e.g., “was veterinary nurse,” “they have sort of preconceived notion”; and the occasional stumbles in “Comma Gets a Cure” and unscripted speech.

COMMENTARY BY: Amy Stoller, unicode trans. Dylan Paul

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/07/2008

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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