Malaysia 2

Listen to Malaysia 2, a 21-year-old woman from Subang Jaya, Malaysia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/07/1995

PLACE OF BIRTH: Subang Jaya, Malaysia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Malay

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: undergraduate university student

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

The speaker was born and raised in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. She lived there for eighteen years and has lived for nearly four years in mid-Michigan, United States.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker was required to learn English as part of her primary and secondary education. She was taught British pronunciation. In her home, her family switched back and forth between English and her first language, Malay.

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

RECORDED BY: Shane Bruno (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/03/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, when we were kids, we played cops and robbers. It’s like where you go around a tree, and then like you pick some people to be cops. And then I don’t, I don’t know how it worked. It was stupid. But then the robbers basically ran around trying to tap the, tap the cops. And if the cop gets tapped, they turn into a robber. And then if a, if a cop like taps you, and then, you become — it’s, it’s, uh, ya, something like that. Uh, ya, when I was 7, me and my sister were almost mugged in front of my house. Ya, we were, we were about to like go to our friend’s house to play badminton. So, ya, we were about to go there. But then like this guy on a motorbike came — am I talking too much? — came, came on a car. No, came on a motorbike, and he was asking for directions. And afterwards he pulled out a knife, and he was asking my sister — who was like, she was like 12 at the time — who had just a got a new Nokia cell phone. He was like give me your phone or I’m gonna hurt you. And that’s I think that was the one situation I thought that I was gonna die. But we were fine ’cause our neighbor came out and the guy ran off.

Hmm, ooh, I got blamed on, uh, copying my friend off a, an exam, at one point. But she was actually copying me. And my, my teacher — this was in high school. And she was like you, ’cause I was kind of an asshole back in, like I w-, yeah, so, it made sense; It looked — it made more sense for me to be the one copying ’cause my friend was like really smart and did really well in school.

Uh, so I am from a small town called Subang Jaya, which I thought was small, but then when I came here and I realized that this is a town. And my town was actually a city. Like, ya, Subang Jaya is like a suburban town. Like twenty minutes away from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. So, ya, like the big — we are like next door to the big, big city. So ya. So I’ve always been, a cit- … I guess I’m kind of like a city girl ’cause I always take the trains to the city, and we have lots of malls. Don’t live next to a — we’re not next to a beach. But it’s pretty nice. Oh, I would go to, uh — there’s this res-, there’s this Indian Restaurant called Niwana. And it’s my favorite thing in the world ’cause I cannot find anything like it here. But they serve banana leaf rice, where basically how it works is that they serve you rice on a banana leaf, like you don’t use plates there. I’ll show you a picture of it. That’s rice, and then they serve you all sorts of curries. But basically you eat with your hands and you eat — it’s on a banana leaf, and it’s so good. You can’t find anything like it here.

Oh, uh, when I was 11, I — I’ve never ridden a bicycle like ever; like I was scared of it. And then, uh, there’s this boy that like I really liked in my neighborhood, and he always cycled by my place like on his, on his bicycle, and like I was like, you know what I wanna ride my bicycle next to him. So I learned; I self-taught myself how to ride a bicycle. And so one day like, ’cause every, no one — everyone always laughed at me for like not, for being so clumsy and not being able to ride a bicycle; can’t ride a skateboard. But I self-taught myself how to ride a bicycle, and I admit I was. One day I finally learned how to do it, and then as he was cycling by I ran out on my, on my bicycle! And I cycled with him. So that’s, that’s, that’s not a great. I don’t know — I just felt very proud of myself.

[Subject speaks Malay]: Dan saya berasal dari Subang Jaya, Malaysia.

[English translation]: And I am from Subang Jaya, Malaysia.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Shane Bruno (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/03/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The speaker’s accent reflects British and American traits, and there are some inconsistencies in pronunciation. Mostly non-rhotic, she drops /r/ completely or replaces it with /w/.  She favors pure vowels, and fronts vowels such as /o/ and /u/. She is a remarkably fast speaker.

COMMENTARY BY: Deric McNish

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/05/2017

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.