Kansas 6

Listen to Kansas 6, a 53-year-old man from Topeka, Kansas, United States, who has also spent considerable time in Georgia and Texas. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 53

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1954

PLACE OF BIRTH: Sacramento, California

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: novelist

EDUCATION: college

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

He was raised in Topeka, Kansas, until the age of 10.  He also lived in Texas, Japan, and in Omaha, Nebraska.  As an adult, he also lived in Atlanta, Georgia, in United States, and in Texas since 1988.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Although subject has not lived in Kansas since the age of 10, he conjectures the Topeka area is the main influence on his dialect. In fact, it’s the subject himself who asked to be placed in the Kansas section of IDEA.

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

RECORDED BY: Subject

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/07/2007

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 Sacramento, California. My father was in the Air Force until I was 19. At the age of three months, we moved to Topeka, Kansas, where I lived until I was 10. After that, we’ve moved around a bunch of places, none for very long. [As a child] I’ve lived in central Texas, [at] an Air Force base in Japan; as an adult, I’ve lived in Atlanta, I’ve lived in Texas since 1988 — but I think it’s in Topeka that I got the accent that I have.  Now, I found the International Dialects of English Archive when I was reading the book “1634: The Baltic War” by Eric Flint, and a running joke in that book is about the strangeness of the West Virginia accents. I got curious what a West Virginia accent was; I found this Website, and I was able to assuage my curiosity. I got really excited about this site because I’m writing a book, and I need to know something about English accents. (I’ve never been to England.) So, I went over to the England section, and found the sixty-three English accents, and listened to them.  The only ones I knew before were a Cockney accent, and the only other one that I knew about was “Received Pronunciation.”  The term Received Pronunciation confuses me. Why is it called that? I sure as heck haven’t received it! Was it lost in the mail?  So anyway, I’ve had great fun listening to the International Dialects of English Archive, and I think I should be placed in its “Kansas” section.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Subject

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/07/2007

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:

• 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.