Malawi 2

Listen to Malawi 2, a 40-year-old man from Liwonde, Malawi. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/04/1977

PLACE OF BIRTH: Machinga District Hospital, Liwonde, Malawi

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Black/Ngoni

OCCUPATION: teacher but temporarily employed as petrol attendant/cashier

EDUCATION: Bachelor of Arts – English & Social Sciences from CPUT, South Africa; and philosophy diploma

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

The subject and his wife followed his brothers who had moved to South Africa to settle in the Western Cape in 2011.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He is an excellent orator, having mastered English growing up in a seminary in Malawi.

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

RECORDED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/02/2018

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 was born in 1977, on the eleventh of April, in Malawi, and I happened to be the second in a family of nine children. You can imagine, that’s a quite big family anyway! I grew up in a seminary because I wanted to be a priest. So I spent the better part of my life in a seminary, and, er, that’s where I got my education. I have a philosophy diploma, and, er, when I was doing my final year, I decided to discontinue with my vocation, because of, you know, some domestic disturbances back home. Then from there I started teaching at private schools in Malawi, before trekking this way: South Africa.

So I pursued my degree in Education and Social Sciences at CPUT Mowbray campus, and, er, graduating in 2015. I just registered for my honors.

English as the official language, with plenty of other local languages. I speak Chichewa – that’s our mother language. My wife also speaks Chichewa, our vernacular language. Three-quarters of the people in Malawi speak Chichewa, or you might come across people speaking Tumbuka, Lomwe, Yao, Konde, but the overwhelming majority of the people speak Chichewa.

People in Malawi are very warm and friendly. If you travel to Malawi yourself, you’d be surprised – you will be surprised, Nadia, to find the way people receive you. You’d be most welcome, and, er, you will really feel at home amongst them.

[Subject continues to speak in Chichewa]. Literal translation: A crocodile does not grow in one pond. For it to grow, it keeps changing ponds. What does that mean? It means for you to be where you are, experienced as you are, you have to keep on changing places where you live, where you stay. You might go to stay in Johannesburg, for example; you might decide to come back to Cape Town, for example; you might want to go to Free State or Eastern Cape, for example. In all these places where you happen to go, you are gathering experiences because you can see the way people live their lives.

One, two, three, go! [Subject and his wife continue to sing in Chichewa]. We are trying to thank God above for giving us life.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/02/2018

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.