Morocco 1

Listen to Morocco 1, a 31-year-old man from Casablanca, Morocco. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 31

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/08/1992

PLACE OF BIRTH: Casablanca

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Muslim/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: bilingual accounting clerk

EDUCATION: master’s degree in accounting and finance

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker lived in Morocco until moving to Canada just over five months prior to this recording. His native language is Arabic, spoken in the Moroccan Arabic dialect. However, French is spoken as an additional language in Morocco and is the lingua franca for business.

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

RECORDED BY: Phyllis Cohen

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/05/2024

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 played it with, uh, with the professional team, with the youth, particularly. If you know, uh, “Raja Casablanca,” the famous team in Morocco? Yes, I played with them, uh, two years. And my parents, uh, told me that I have to leave, I have to leave this game. You have to be focused on your, uh, studies because I cannot, uh [subject laughs] I cannot do it in the same time – to have a good results in my studies, to improve in [subject laughs] my level, and play at the same time soccer. It was very diff-, specially the club was so far from the house, uh, maybe almost 20 kilometers. And I had to commute alone or with my friends. I was just 12 and 13 years old, and it’s not easy to commute by, uh, by, uh, public transit, by bus, or by taxi in this age. So I find it very difficult to have a good result in my studies and play soccer. It’s so difficult to do two careers at the same time. I had, uh, good parents. But, unfortunately, sometimes we cannot get to what we want. But, uh, I’m looking forward to do, uh, to build a career in this game as a coach.

[The subject speaks the following in Moroccan Arabic]: من الصغر ديالي و الهواية المفضلة ديالي هي كرة القدم و دائما ما كنت كنلعب هاد الرياضة مع اصدقائي و زملائي فالمدرسة فأوقات الفراغ. بالرغم من انني منقدرش مزال نلعب مع فريق محترف إلا أنني كنطالع ندير مسار مهني فهاد اللعبة كمدرب

[Transliteration: Mn ālṣġr dyāly w ālhwāyة ālmfḍlة dyāly hy krة ālqdm w dāئmā mā knt knlʿb hād ālryāḍة mʿ āṣdqāئy w zmlāئy fālmdrsة fأwqāt ālfrāġ. Bālrġm mn ānny mnqdrš mzāl nlʿb mʿ fryq mḥtrf إlā أnny knṭālʿ ndyr msār mhny fhād āllʿbة kmdrb.

English translation: I have always been a huge soccer fan, and I have usually played it with my friends and classmates in my free time, although I cannot play with a professional team. I’m looking forward to having an important career in this game as a coach.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Phyllis Cohen

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/05/2024

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Although the subject’s native language is Arabic, spoken in the Moroccan Arabic dialect, French is a second language in Morocco and used regularly in business. So it’s interesting to hear a more familiar French prosody occasionally slip into his speech. You hear it in the syllable stress and rising intonation in “managed” in Comma Gets a Cure, and notably on “you have to be focused on your studies” and “to have a good result in my studies” in the extemporaneous section.

Most of the consonant pronunciations feel familiar to the General American or Canadian speaker, although the subject often replaces /ɹ/ with a tapped /ɾ/ and unvoiced plosive /p/ is voiced. Plosives /t/ and /d/ are dental. Produced with the tip of the tongue dropped and body of the tongue high, final /t̪/and the fricative /s/ create the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and the laminal fricative /s̻/, respectively.

The GOAT diphthong is replaced with a mid-open back CLOTH monophthong. The NURSE r-colored vowel /ɚ/ is often replaced with a lower fronted vowel, closer to the SQUARE /ɛᵊɹ/ r-colored vowel.

COMMENTARY BY: Phyllis Cohen

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/05/2024

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.