Norway 2

Listen to Norway 2, a 32-year-old woman from Oslo and Stavangar, Norway. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 32

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/01/1979

PLACE OF BIRTH: Stavangar, Norway

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Norwegian/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: postgraduate

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

The subject was born in Stavanger, Norway. She moved to Oslo at age 4, then returned to Stavanger to study for her undergraduate degree. She lived in New York for one year and had been in Melbourne, Australia, for three months at the time of this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject was first taught English at school at the age of 10 and learned English for another 12 years. Her teachers were Norwegian and spoke with mainly British (RP) accents. Films and television also provided U.S. influences.

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

RECORDED BY: Jennifer Innes

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/05/2011

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, I was born on the west coast of Norway. Um, moved to Oslo when I was 4 years old, um, not in the city, just, um, small suburb out of the city.  Um, very quiet, ah, kind of, um, I guess a bit boring place, but it’s a nice place to grow up. Um, it’s only twenty minutes into the centre of Oslo, so it’s quite near as well. Um, I have an older brother, he’s two years older than me, ah, a mum and a dad. We had a dog, a very nice cute dog that I loved, a golden (laughs) retriever, ah she died when I was seventeen.  So, a bit sad about that (laughs) but I’ll get a new dog one day hopefully.  Um, I um, I’ve been travelling a lot, eh, took my undergrad er, where I actually grew up, on the west coast of Norway and then I moved to New York, stayed there for a while and then came back to Oslo, worked and danced for a couple of years and then I came to Melbourne.

[Subject then speaks in Norwegian]: En aprilkveld i 1943, da Chapman satt i mahognibaren på Hotel Ritz på Skillebekk, et yndet vannhull for tyske offiserer og quislinger, så han en vakker kvinne i utringet kjole og høye hæler – røkende Craven “A,” sigaretter i elfenbensfarget munnstykke. Den kvinnekjære Chapman tok kontakt, og hadde da ingen mistanke om at 21-årige Dagmar kanskje hadde oppsøkt naziredet av andre grunner enn bare å bli påspandert drinker i mondene omgivelser. Dagmar trodde at Chapman arbeidet for tyskerne, han trodde at hun var “tyskertøs.” Allikevel ble de snart et par, uten å vite at også den andre sto på alliert side.

[English translation: One April evening in 1943, when Chapman was sitting in the mahogany bar at Hotel Ritz at Skillebekk, a popular water hole for German officers and members of the Norwegian national socialist party, his eye fell on a beautiful woman with a décolletage and high heels, smoking Craven A cigarettes in an ivory mouthpiece. The womanizer Chapman contacted her, and did not suspect that 21-year old Dagmar had other reasons to haunt the Nazi nest, than being bought drinks in a fancy bar. Dagmar thought Chapman worked for the Germans; he thought she was a “German whore.” Nevertheless, they soon became a couple, one without knowing that the other was also working for the allied forces.

Source: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/article1600783.ece]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jennifer Innes

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/05/2011

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Some end “t”s are glottalised, e.g., “jacket” and “strut.” Medial “t”s are said as “d”s, as in “letter.” Accent is rhotic; the “r” sounds more similar to a U.S. accent than a U.K. The “o” vowel (as in “long”) shows U.S. influence and is pronounced as the phonetic a:. “Th,” as in “the,” varies between the dental fricative sound and a tapped alveolar ridge “d” sound. The “e” sound, as in “gently,” is pronounced “i,” as in “hit.” The mid “s” sound in “measure” is unvoiced in the subject’s speech, where it would be voiced in U.K., U.S. and Australian accents.

COMMENTARY BY: Jennifer Innes

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/05/2011

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.