Kansas 1

Listen to Kansas 1, a 23-year-old man from Overland Park, Kansas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 23

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1976

PLACE OF BIRTH: Overland Park, Kansas

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian, with Jewish/Polish and Russian background

OCCUPATION: actor

EDUCATION: The subject was attending university at the time of this recording.

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

He’s been living in Lawrence, Kansas, while at school. It’s only 30 miles from Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject is a theatre major. His family has Jewish roots, and he often heard his relatives speaking Yiddish when he was young, although he never spoke it himself. He is the son of subjects Kansas 2 and Kansas 3.

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): 1999

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 was born in Overland Park, Kansas. Um, around those parts we often refer to that whole area as being Kansas City, uh, which includes Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri.  Um, I’ve lived there most of my life.  I- I was a … until I came to college at the University of Kansas, I — which is only about 30 miles down the road in Lawrence, Kansas — um, I was public school educated.  Uh, uh, when — when I was 5 I went to, you know, just the normal kindergarten, and, and I stayed in public education all the way up through twelfth grade. Um, and, uh, at the University of Kansas I am a theatre major, uh, where I hope to become a stand-up comic later in life.  My family’s origins are pretty interesting.  Um, I was raised in a Jewish family, um, which, uh, it — which has its roots, uh, from, uh, Poland and the Holocaust, and, uh, I do have some Russian, um, on one side of my family. And, um, it was very interesting growing up because I could always — um, I always had relatives around with funny accents.  Um, uh, my, uh, dad’s parents, for example, um, are both from Poland, and, uh, both have, uh, very strong Yiddish accents. Um, so I was exposed to that a lot, as a kid. Um, they always spoke in Yiddish when they didn’t want me to know, uh, what they were saying. Um, so by the ti– by the time I was a little older, I could kind of figure out what they were saying, um, a little bit more.  Um, actually both of my parents, uh, grew up in the same area.  My mom was raised on the Missouri side of Kansas City, and my dad, uh — my dad too was raised on the Missouri side of Kansas City, which is only about, uh, 15, 20 miles from where I was raised.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/03/2008

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:

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• 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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