South Africa 53

Listen to South Africa 53, a 49-year-old man from Nigel, South Africa. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 49

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/12/1970

PLACE OF BIRTH: Nigel, South Africa

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white with English and Scottish ancestry

OCCUPATION: pilot

EDUCATION: secondary

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

The subject lived in different parts of South Africa in his early adulthood (Cape Town, Bloemfontein, and Kempton Park). He has lived in the United Kingdom, in the Bristol area, for the past 10 years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s mother was Scottish and his father English.

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

RECORDED BY: Tshari King

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/11/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

OK, growing up in Nigel, we were very carefree — used to run around in shorts, and that was it, no t-shirts, no shoes, no nothin’. We used to go into the fields and basically climb trees, build huts, forts, throw stones at each other and generally get up to a lot of mischief.

We had bicycles, which we used to ride in the exactly the same; we never wore helmets or any sort of protective clothing; we used to fall off them quite often, and we used to hurt ourselves a lot.

Um, life was very easy; you never had a watch; you came home when the street lamps came on or before your father got home; otherwise, you were in trouble. But apart from that, um, yeah, I had two older brothers, so I was the baby, so I always drew the short straw no matter what, um, so wore hand-me-downs for probably the first ten years of my life before I received a brand-new shirt or anything. Erm, yeah, that’s about it.

[Subject speaks Afrikaans]: Goie naand. Ek kom van Suid Afrika af. Ek het daar gebly vir vyf en dertig jaar, en ek leef nou in Engeland vir die afgelope tien jaar.

[English translation: Good evening. I come from South Africa. I lived there for thirty-five years, and now I’ve lived in England for the past ten years.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Tshari King

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/04/2020

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:

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• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

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• 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).

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