Saskatchewan 3

Listen to Saskatchewan 3, a 44-year-old man from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 44

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1955

PLACE OF BIRTH: Wolseley, Saskatchewan, Canada

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: information technologist

EDUCATION: high school

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

The subject was raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Susan Stackhouse

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 2000

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I’m 44 years old. Live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I, ah, I’m a father of two grown children, one of whom got married just the other day. Um, my wife and I are great friends. We love to spend time together. We love to … especially take part in church activities together. Ministering to people, and, and worshipping. I work, ah, with the church as a director of a training school. As well — that’s half time — the other half of my, my time, my work life, is spent with the Provincial Government, ah, in the mapping department. So I spend half my time with people, half my time with computers and, and engineering type activities. So it’s a nice balance for me. Oh that [his son’s wedding] was a, an am- … an amazing day for our whole family, but for me in particular. I had the opportunity, which I never would have dreamed I would have, of actually officiating the wedding ceremony and performing the wedding of my son and my new daughter-in-law. And it was a very emotional time, a very, um, just a very rich time of, um, building memories for our family and, and we’re looking forward now to how that’s all going to fit together and, and develop as we, as we, um, enter this new phase of our, of our lives together as a family. [Talking about language specific to the area he lives in] Well, things, aw that’s specific to this area? I’m not sure. We say the Canadian “aye” a lot. [laughs] We, ah, we say “anti,” not “aunty,” which is, I think even in Canada some parts say “aunty.” Um, not far from us in the States they say “ruff” where we say “roof.” We say, um, well maybe I’m just naïve but it seems to me that, that the Canadian accent and mid-western Canada is kind of a generic type of an English accent that seems to go well. Even the States will recruit our, our people to read the news because it’s kind of a generic-type accent.

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:

Subject is married and the father of two grown children. He is the husband of Saskatchewan 5 and the father of Saskatchewan 4. Half of his work life is spent as an information technologist and the other half as a post-secondary trainer. This sample could arguably be considered a typical Canadian sound. J.C. Wells, in his book “Accents of English 3,” says, “From Ottawa to Vancouver is more than 3000 kilometres; their accents are virtually the same.” This sound is closer to General American than that of Eastern Canada, and this notion is addressed by the speaker when he mentions that the Midwestern states recruit newscasters from Saskatchewan. Many Canadians mispronounce the word “Saskatchewan.” This speaker gives us a great example of how it is pronounced by those who are born and raised in the province (Saskatchwen), with a schwa in the first and final syllables. Other Canadians often pronounce it Sas/kat/chew/on, with no schwa. There is slight evidence of Canadian Raising (mid-central starting point when the following consonant is voiceless) with the words “white light” and “high.” The word “our” is pronounced “are,” and the word “sure” is pronounced “sher” (as in Shirley) in typical Canadian fashion. Please note that this subject is speaking with muscular tension in a lowered larynx and has a narrow pitch range, as is the case with most samples from Saskatchewan. Also note the rising intonation.

COMMENTARY BY: Susan Stackhouse

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2000

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.