North Carolina 2

Listen to North Carolina 2, a woman in her 50s from Manteo, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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Please note: This subject does not read the scripted passage.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 50s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1940s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Manteo, Outer Banks, North Carolina

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: wife of crab fisherman

EDUCATION: high school

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s dialect is very strong and owes, by her own testimony, much to her association with the people of Wanchese, another town on Roanoke Island.

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): 1999

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 and raised right here in Manteo, and I grew up here, and I went to school with local children and on the island, and I graduated and we all talk alike. But the bridge going over to Nag’s Head was there, and of course we went back and forth, but when I went to school the children from across the sound had to come across every morning on the ferry. And, um, they, when we had any kind of activity at night, they would have to spend the night with somebody over here in order to go. It’s that English accent. Uh, my father was in the University of Virginia, and the woman that was in the, um, head nurse, she said, “You talk so near like they do from there.” And, but I’m, I want to keep it. I don’t know because I’ve never been to England, um, but I would like to go sometime. My husband’s people, they have their coat of arms. They’re strictly, um, English. His mother was a Stowe, and his, um, father was a Peele now well that, I don’t think, I don’t know whether that was English or not, but his, his mother’s people came from England. And I was a Russell, and my grandmother was a Journagan [spelling?], and there was a Lord Journagan a few years ago in England. So I mean, I know we’re all kinda, English you know, our ancestors. My little grandson was sitting here one night and a commercial came on TV and it was the pig man over on the beach and he said, “You got to stop and get some barbecue,” and Lyle said, “Who ever heard of barbecue?” said, “It’s barbecue.” So I mean, it just, we’re all, you know, talk alike. Now in Ocracoke, they talk real fast. You have to really listen. And Rudolph is from Hatteras, but he lost a lot of his because he was in service and he traveled a lot. And when we go anywhere, people say, “Oh, I know where you’re from!” I’m the one that gets blamed, and he’s from further that way than I am. But I went to school, now, the children from Wanchese have a real heavy brogue just like, what, as bad as me or worse, but see I went to school with ‘em. And, uh, I have a girlfriend that lives in Greensboro, and she’s lived there for years, and she still has it, so you don’t get rid of it. My son that’s, he does that every year, he has, um, crab pots, or they’re, er, they’re peeler pots, and he catches ’em and brings them in and he has to sort them. The green ones are not; he has to put them in different sheds and as they ripen; the come out of their sheds. And that’s what we have: soft-shelled crabs. Well, now my husband was a party fisherman. My son-in-law is a sculptor. He lives in Florida, and he made that boat and give it to Rudolph one Christmas that was his boat. And, uh, he caught marlin and sailfish and all kinds of stuff like that. Now my little grandson, or he’s not little, he has been catchin’ some beautiful trout and stuff in the, um, sound. He has nets that he’s been catching. And, um, he just living up here, and my son’s home’s right next door to me. But now my son also hard crabs, but, um, now there’s another run of peelers it’s gonna come. This years been the worst peeler season that they’ve had, and so then we’re hoping that the next run, there’s usually two runs that we’re hoping it will be better, but, um, we have possums and raccoons and stuff like that, but we don’t have any deer. No, but I’ll tell you what, when my son was just a little feller I looked out and all I could think about, oh me! I saw all these things in this little creek, and it was porpoises, and all I could think about was sharks, and I screamed for him; I thought he was, you know, right that minute, you don’t think you just think, “My child’s out there.” And it was porpoises. There was about five of ‘em. That was the worst sight. It scared me until I found out what they were.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Hannah Ballou

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/2001

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:

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