Louisiana 5

Listen to Louisiana 5, a 61-year-old woman from Destrehan, New Orleans, and Covington, Louisiana, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 61

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/08/1951

PLACE OF BIRTH: Destrehan, Louisiana

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: volunteer coordinator, court-appointed special advocate

EDUCATION: B.A. in Art, University of New Orleans

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

The subject was born in Destrehan, about 35 miles from New Orleans. She went to high school and college in New Orleans, lived in Metairie, Louisiana, for five years as a young adult, and settled in Covington, Louisiana, on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain (30 miles from New Orleans).

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s father spoke fluent French. Her speech is a good example of a south Louisiana dialect.

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

RECORDED BY: Connie de Veer

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/06/2012

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY:  N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Em, I grew up in Destrehan, a little town about 30 miles outside of New Orleans. It was very rural. We had a — one little country store. We picked blackberries in the summer and, uh swam, and did very country kind of things. And grew up with lots of family around always; and I was a tomboy, my cousin was a tomboy, so we had a great time growing up. I hated school. I liked recess and P.E. and playing sports after school. I hated lunch. And then I went into New Orleans for high school and college. And met my husband at a college in New Orleans. And I was 18 then. And uh … we wound up moving to New Orleans when we got married when I was 23, and had my first baby in New Orleans in Gentilly. And then we moved to Metairie in a move to the suburbs and had our second baby, and then we moved to the North Shore, uh, across Lake Ponchartrain, and we’ve been for about thirty years, and I’m 61 now. And I love to play tennis, and I have six grandchildren and they’re so much fun; and I’ve been married 38 years; and I love being married now; you, um, you appreciate it more when you get older. And, uh, I miss my parents dearly. I have a sister and a brother, um, who I treasure, especially with my parents gone. My dad and … my mom and dad were both from New Orleans; and um, his father was from LeHavre, France. And my dad didn’t speak English ‘til he went to school. He spoke…they spoke French at home. And they…they had a very close family too. We have a, um, above the ground, uh, cemetery monument whatever you call it, in the Metairie cemetery for the family. Most of the family’s buried in there. Very New Orleans traditionally [unclear] lived outside of New Orleans and very tied to it … uh, lots of family there.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Connie de Veer

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/06/2012

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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• 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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