India 11

Listen to India 11, a 25-year-old woman from Jamnagar and Mumbai, India. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 25

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1983

PLACE OF BIRTH: Jamnagar, in Gujarat, western India

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: N/A

OCCUPATION: psychologist

EDUCATION: The subject was working on her second master’s degree, in clinical psychology.

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

She lived in India for 23 years before moving to California, in the United States. Growing up, she lived in Mumbai and Baroda, India, for more than a year each.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She speaks Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil and English. She learned English before kindergarten because her parents were English speaking.

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

RECORDED BY: Hannah Parsons (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/10/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, I was born in Jamnagar, which is a city in the western state of Gujarat in India. And … the language spoken in Gujarat is Gujarati, but my parents hail from a Southern state in India named Tamil Nadu, so the native language, language spoken there is Tamil hence my mother tongue is Tamil. So as a result I learned Tamil and Gujarati. And since India, uh, … the … national language of India is Hindi; we learned that in school so that’s how I know Hindi, and since I was educated till the 10th grade in a convent school and later on went on to study in various English medium schools and colleges, I learned English as well. And … the earliest that I remember, I think I learned English before I started schooling or kindergarten because both my parents were English-speaking but that need not necessarily be the norm for everybody from India. And … right now I’m here in Cal State Fullerton doing my second masters in clinical psychology, um, … and I’m liking it a lot. I did my first masters in India and I was working there for a year or two in the schools and then I realized I needed some more training, so here I am.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Hannah Parsons (under supervision of David Nevell)

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

In this interview, the speaker gives clear representations of several signature Indian sounds including: 1) the emphasized yet not aspirated p’s and t’s in “Perry” and “territory”; 2) her replacement of w’s with v’s like in “was a woman with a goose” represented as “vas a voman vith a goose”; 3) the retroflexed, tapped r, which can be heard in “Sarah Perry” and “hurry”; and 4) the linking r in “a year or two.”

COMMENTARY BY: Hannah Parsons

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/10/2008

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).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.