Ontario 2

Listen to Ontario 2, a 20-year-old woman from Woodbridge (suburb of Toronto), Ontario, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples.  IDEA is a free resource;  please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

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

PLACE OF BIRTH: Woodbridge (suburb of Toronto), Ontario, Canada

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian (Italian-Canadian)

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: At the time of the recording, she was studying acting at York University.

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject is second-generation Italian-Canadian.

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

RECORDED BY: Eric Armstrong

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

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 grew up in Woodbridge. And, um, one of my best childhood friends’ name was Lena, and she lived a house down from me. And so, ah, we would always, like, take turns whenever we were bored. She’d come to my house first, then we’d get bored, we’d go to her house. And then we’d get bored there, so we’d come back. And we weren’t really doing anything, but it was just fun. And, um, our parents used to always, like, make fun of us and be like, you know, “What’s the point? You know what I mean? You guys are a house away, just stay in the one spot.” And, um, Italian parents, like, they get very annoyed easily. [laughs] They have no patience [laughs], especially with kids and stuff. Especially the p … the dad. The mom is more, you know, nurturing and, you know, does all the motherly stuff, and the father just sits there, works and watches TV … sometimes burps, but, ah … [laughs] And so, um, we went …we were at my house and we got bored so we walked over to her house, and we were really bored, so we started, like, playing around and running around the house. And only her father was home. And her father is a character. He never says a word, but when he talks he’s always mad. Like, he … he’s never like, he’s never just neutral. So, we were running around the house, and I guess she broke some … well, yeah, she broke his guitar. And, ah, it w- it was an accident. But this was a guitar that he played when he was in Italy growing up, so this was a big sentimental thing for him. And so he comes in the room. And he’s just like: “Lee, Lee what’d you do?” And, like, she’s hiding it of course, under. And he’s like: “Let me see.” And like all the strings are broken, and there’s like a little hole in the back. It could be fixed. Kno-, knowing what I know now about guitars, it could be fixed. But, of course, he didn’t know anything, so, and he started freaking out. And then he said this, like, saying in Italian, which has stuck with me since then. And I … like, me, my sister, we always laugh about it, and every time I talk to her about it she gets angry because this was like a moment when he was ready to beat her. So he’s like, [speaking Italian]. I tell you once. I tell you twice. I tell you three times. [speaking Italian] And it’s funny because, like, Italian-Canadians they have, like, different languages. They make up different words. So, they’re speaking Italian, but they mix up Canadian words and the Italian words, and they speak half Canadian, half Italian, half dialect. So, then that reminded me of a time I was in Italy and we were on the bus. My dad was telling me a story and he was … [What did that mean?] It meant, um, sorry. I don’t want to hear another word about it, not one more word. I tell you once to be quiet. I tell you twice. I tell you three times. I don’t want to hear another word! So basically, that’s what he said. And it’s just funny knowing that, because we were in Italy once, and we were on a bus, and my dad was talking to me like that. And it’s, like, natural for us. Even my grandmother, who lived in Italy for most of her life, talks like that because, you know, you have to adapt. And, um, we were talking, and then halfway through our conversation a guy turns around and he’s like: “Ma scusa,” and he’s like, and he’s saying it in Italian, “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. How do you understand this man? He’s speaking three languages. Speaking Canadian …” He said … he thought we were American, and so he’s like, “Americane.” Which, like, pissed me off, but whatever. “…Speaking Canadian. You’re speaking, ah ah, Italian and you’re speaking dialect. I’m trying to, like, understand you but I don’t!” And we were just like: “Wait a minute, that’s so true.” And it was just funny, like, every time we hear our parents or our grandparents talking. And that’s why it screws up kids. When they wanna learn Italian, pure Italian, so when they go to Italy, you know, they can speak. It’s not the real language. So you go there, and people from Italy don’t even know what you’re talking about. So, yeah, that’s my story. [laughs]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mitchell Kelly

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/01/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Woodbridge is an Italian-Canadian suburb of Toronto, Ontario. The subject was 20 years old at the time of recording, studying acting at York University in Toronto. She demonstrates the typical placement (resonating in the back of the mouth, fairly flat intonation) of second generation Italian-Canadians. Features to notice, apart from typical Canadian Raising changes to the /aʊ/ (“foot and mouth disease” or “house”) and /aɪ/ (“price”) diphthongs when they precede a voiceless consonant are “-ing” endings (occasionally, a light “g” is inserted at the ends of words, [-INg]) and in (“more to her liking”). Also note: splashy t: /t/ has a slight dentalization, creating a slightly splashy quality; yod dropping, as in “Duke” [duk]
; GOAT[oʊ] monophthonging (often said as [o]); glottalling of some non-intervocalic medial /t/s, as in “treatment, immediately,” and on final /t/ (not intervocalic) “got there”; /tr-/ clusters may have some affricate qualities /t͡ʃɹ/; CURE is [kjɝ]; THOUGHT and LOT and PALM merge as [ɑ]; “porridge” (as are other Canadian -orr- words, as in “sorry, tomorrow, borrow”) is NORTH/FORCE; CHOICE is [oi] as in “annoyed”; PRICE is [əɪ]; and plural “s” [z] devoices to [s].

COMMENTARY BY: Eric Armstrong, Unicode trans. Dylan Paul

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

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.