Ontario 39

Listen to Ontario 39, a 21-year-old woman from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/05/2002

PLACE OF BIRTH: Toronto, Ontario

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: White/Canadian with European ancestry

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

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

She has lived in downtown Toronto her whole life.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s mother was born in England but lived there for only three years before moving to Manitoba, Canada. The subject’s father’s first language is German, and her primary grandparent also has a heavy German accent.

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

RECORDED BY: subject

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/05/2023

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Ah, yeah, I was born, uh, downtown Toronto. I’ve lived here all my life. I’m twenty-one, now, uh, born two thousand two. I was born to a family that’s more European-Canadian, uh, but unfortunately we’re quite mixed, so we’ve lost a lot of the culture just because of being both German, and Serbian, and Russian, and Greek — kind of picked and chose. I do speak a little German; it’s really shit, though.

I was raised downtown; um, the typical Toronto accent feels a bit more GTA, with the Scarborough slang and, like, the mix of Patois influence. Never really made its way downtown, so while I can understand it, I don’t really speak like that, yeah.

I’m trying to think of some local idioms. Uh, my American friends really only point out my accent when I go down there, um, on words like “out and about,” um, or “sorry.” And some French influences like the words “foyer,” which I think they say “foy-ER,” and “niche” and “toque.” Um, and as far as local idioms, “converter” is a pretty big one if you have any family from the seventies that grew up in Toronto, ah, it’s pretty, pretty common in the older generations; I think there was like a, a package that had referred to the, uh, remote controls for TVs as converters, so, um, a lot of the older generation says converter, um. And then as far as the new slang coming in, it’s like a lot of Patois, uh, some Arabic influences depending on where you’re from. There are definitely better people to interview about that.

TRANSCRIBED BY: subject

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/05/2023

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:

• 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.