New York 6

Listen to New York 6, a 53-year-old woman from Queens and Long Island, New York, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 53

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1947

PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City (Queens)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Jewish

OCCUPATION: dental hygienist

EDUCATION: N/A

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s first language is Yiddish.

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

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/13/2000

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 spoke Yiddish, which is my first language.  Then we moved to our own apartment for three years, and then we moved to Long Island, where I lived the rest of my life, until I met David, and then I moved to Queens, which I thought was going to be horrible, because I thought we’d be moving to a city and I didn’t really want to live there.  And then he promised me if I didn’t like it, we could move back to Long Island, which we did. And then we had our two children.   G– they — we only lived in Long Island for five years, then we moved back to Queens, which again, he said if I didn’t like, I could move back to. …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/10/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Like her husband, New York 5, she exhibits many expected features of the dialect. Listen for lack of r-coloration in “start,” “north,” “morning,” “letter,” “force,” etc.; and for the diphthonging of the vowel in “long,” “office,” “calling,” etc. The “creaky” voice is also interesting.

If you are a dialect researcher, or an actor using this sample to develop your skill in the accent, please see my instruction manual at www.paulmeier.com. As the speaker in this sample is a unique individual, it is highly unlikely that she will conform to my analysis in every detail. But you will find it interesting and instructive to notice which of my “signature sounds” and “additional features” (always suggested only as commonly heard features of the accent) are widely used by most speakers of the dialect and which are subject to variation from individual to individual.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/13/2000 (amended 11/11/2016)

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.