Ontario 8

Listen to Ontario 8, a 29-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: 29

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1978

PLACE OF BIRTH: England (but raised in Toronto)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: South Asian

OCCUPATION: policy officer for a UK women’s rights organization

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject lived in the United Kingdom for four years a child, immigrated to Toronto and was raised there. She was living in North London, Ontario, at the time of this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s parents received British English educations and spoke in more of a British dialect before moving to Canada. Likewise, as the subject describes, she also spoke in a British dialect before losing most of it following her move to Canada as a young girl.

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

RECORDED BY: Marina Tyndall

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/10/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

‘K, so I was born in the UK. And I grew up in Canada, um, but my parents lived in the UK for about a decade. Um, and I lived here for four years before we emigrated to the … Canada. So I think, er, and they emigrated themselves, from South Asia, before moving to the UK. Um, they both had education in English, but their education was from the British, leftover British colonial systems. So I think they were probably, like, I know my mum, um, hers, her, er, teachers were English nuns. So she probably learned how to speak English from people who had English accents. Then they lived in the UK for a decade. And, um, certainly words, vocabulary was English-tinged, so using sofa instead of couch. When we moved to Canada, I could already speak English, and I spoke with an English accent. Er, and I called things by their English names rather than their, er, North American versions, for instance sofa-couch or lift-elevator. Um, I lost the accent pretty quickly, because you got teased a lot at school, and only ever had a Canadian accent as far as anyone was concerned. Um, I don’t think I retained, I wouldn’t say I retained any of the English accent. Um, I don’t hear an English accent from my parents when they speak, er, because they’ve now been in Canada for over two decades. Um, and I think, uh when I moved here, people could definitely tell that I wasn’t English. I think even now most people can tell I’m not English but when I go home they think I have an English accent. But I, I can’t tell I don’t think I sound that English at all, I think I sound still Canadian, but it must be some intonations or very slight, y’know twanging is slightly different or something like that where they can kind of hear, an English accent they claim. But I don’t know. I still sound mostly the same I think my words are just different now that I’m not, in my accent.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Marina Tyndall

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/04/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Note the following features: raised FACE vowel; open DRESS vowel; open TRAP vowel relative to GenAm; glottalisation at word boundaries such as “strut around,” “that area,” and “foot and mouth”; fairly pure C5 LOT vowel in “Comma was strong and huge,” though this varies; frequent glottal reinforcement on “practice,” “checked herself,” “vet,” “gently stroking,” “Once Sarah” (on epenthetic /t/), “got teased a lot in school,” and “I think” (unscripted segment); intermittent raising and fronting of STRUT (“grew up in Canada” and “strut around”); and use of the English “mum” rather than “mom.”

COMMENTARY BY: Marina Tyndall

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/10/2007

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.