Jamaica 11

Listen to Jamaica 11, a 17-year-old girl from Jamaica. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 17

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/04/1998

PLACE OF BIRTH: Miami, Florida, United States (but raised in Jamaica)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: African-Jamaican

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: tertiary

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

Though she was born in Miami, in the United States, the subject moved immediately to Jamaica and has lived there her entire life. However, she frequently visits Miami.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Her speech comes from her parents, who raised her. American English has little effect on her because she was exposed to it only through TV shows and visits to Miami. She says she was raised around Jamaican English.

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

RECORDED BY: Elizabeth Montoya-Stemann

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 04/02/2016

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

My accent is a mixture of Jamaican Creole and Standard English, whereas my dad is from urban Jamaica so he has a deeper accent, whereas his Jamaican Creole will be like “go down to the town fo do get something fi eat.” And then my mom’s [with emphasis] accent would be like, “I am going to the town fo get something fo eat,” where urban, urban Jamaican accents are mixed with a mixture of Jamaican Creole and Standard English while urban accents are, is a mixture of — it’s more deeper in sound and everything, and like the accents — like words differ. For example, in urban, you would say like plastic bag will be like scandal bag whereas in country it would be aah, whereas in country it would be “lada bag.” So that’s the difference between the accents.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Elizabeth Montoya-Stemann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/02/2016

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

In the unscripted speech, we can identify the Jamaican particles “fo” and “fi.” In the dictionary of Jamaican English (Cassidy, F. D. & Le Page, R. B., 2002[1980], p. 176) /fi/ /fo/ are defined as “to,” when introducing an infinitive verb.

COMMENTARY BY: Elizabeth Montoya-Stemann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/03/2016

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.