Malawi 1

Listen to Malawi 1, a 34-year-old man from Blantyre, Malawi. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 34

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/01/1984

PLACE OF BIRTH: Blantyre, Malawi

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Black

OCCUPATION: painter

EDUCATION: national higher education — Standard 8

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

The subject moved to the Western Cape in South Africa in 2015 and was still living and working there at the time of this interview.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

Please note that this subject reads only a portion of Comma Gets a Cure.

RECORDED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/02/2018

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 born in Malawi, in 1984, and, er, I grow up Malawi. I start school, uhm, Nkombe Primary School, and, er, I leave school, because — I left the Standard 8; I leave Standard 8 because of — I don’t have, er, some money, gonna help me about money, because my mother is old [and] my father don’t have father. So I leave that time and to start to looking the job. And that time I have it the money, I come here to South Africa, to looking money. That’s why I’m here.

Here I know painting, garden, even, er, to put ceiling. Every time, I go there by robot, to looking for a job, there Marina da Gama. I’m not getting job every day. Uhm, maybe there like two weeks, maybe I got work, maybe three days, or maybe one days. Ja. Because when I have it the one job opera [unclear] two weeks, I keep it maybe like two hundred, three hundred, so I buy food, and the others, I keep it to pay rent. I think there a month, almost maybe – one thousand something.

I s- I’m staying with my friend. But sometimes he help me to pay rent, because me, I’m not working.

My language Chichewa, like: [Subject continues to speak in Chichewa] “How are you?”

Like, when I’m saying, you, uhm: [Subject continues to speak in Chichewa] – is like: “How are you? I’m fine, and you? OK, where you going this time? I’m going to work.”

Here, South Africa, I’m using my language, and this, ah, er, English. Uhm, like, er, Xhosa and, er, Afrikaans, if maybe you talking, I’m gonna — I’m gonna hear you what you’ve saying, but I can’t speech. But when you talking: “Do something, like the what-what…” Uhm, Arikaans or Xhosa, I’m gonna hear what you saying, but I can’t talk.

OK, there’s, uhm, my friend, and, er, my landlord is Xhosa, so there’s, er, two rooms from – this people is from Zimbabwe. I pay one thousand five hundred Rand. Electricity, we buy for three hundred Rand, like one thousand eight hundred.

Here I don’t have wife; I don’t children. But by my country I have it, the wife and the children. You see other is seven years, and the other is five years. When I’m not working, I go to club [unclear] there, to playing soccer. Malawi people make a team, to playing there, that’s how it is [unclear]. We go every day, but we going in night when people coming from work, we go there, around maybe 6 o’clock. Ja, I started from s- school when the – I was playing the club there, by my country. [Subject laughs.] I like, er, Messi.

[Subject continues to sing in Chichewa.] Ja, it’s Chichewa. It’s talking like, er, you – you talking to mother for Jesus, ma Maria. So you say to her, “Thank you. We have it your child to take us, to keep us, for everything. Ja, so we’re here; we walking; we doing something because of your child.”

TRANSCRIBED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/02/2018

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.