Quebec 2

Listen to Quebec 2, a 48-year-old man from Montreal and Quebec City, Quebec, 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: 48

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1951

PLACE OF BIRTH: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: mathematics professor, former seaman

EDUCATION: From his profession, we can assume an upper-level degree.

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

The subject lived for one year in Rimouski, Quebec, Canada. He also lived 20 years in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; two years in Zambia; one year in Gabon; and six years in Cairo, Egypt, for 6 years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He is a native French speaker but traveled as a seaman before becoming a math professor. He has a definite French Canadian sound, although it’s muted by his years of cosmpolitan life.

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

RECORDED BY: Krista Scott

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/06/1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So I’m [unclear] from — I’m born in Montreal.  So I lived there for twenty years. Um, then I left for a smaller place, maybe five hundred kilometers from there, called Rimouski — Quebec province, still — to study.  Uh, I studied navigation.  Then I stayed there for a year, then came back midway [unclear] somehow to Quebec City and lived there for maybe almost twenty years, although most of the time [unclear] were out of the country because I was seaman. Uh, then I left for Zambia for a couple of years, then came back to Quebec a couple of years, and left back for another country in Africa, Gabon, then back to Quebec for two, three years, then, uh, back to Cairo.  And I’m still here.  I’ve been here for six years now.  [laughs] Well, there is this, uh, there was a — I suppose, I suppose there’s still this tradition of, uh, winter carnival in Quebec City, uh, some, some event where people used to, um, well, drink a lot.  But, um, it used to be in the coldest time of the year, and, uh, there would be activities ranging from all sort of sports like, uh, crossing the river, uh, on a boat, um, when there is a lot of ice so they have to walk on it and then to row and everything.  Other sports, also, and some sort of cultural or half-cultural activities, uh, from sculpture [unclear] on ice or, um, some, um, well, there is this beauty contest also which I — they didn’t know what to do even with it because they wanted to sort of keep the tradition, but of course it was out of fashion even fifteen years ago, so they — I don’t know if they still hesitate or what they should do with that.  Maybe they abolish it now.  I, I have no idea.  But they’re really, really looking for something — something to take the place of this thing.  But, um, something maybe more appropriate for, uh, the time being [unclear].  Anyway, it was a fun time and there were a lot of tourists coming for that.

TRANSCRIBED BY: John Wright

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/05/2008

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.