South Carolina 11

Listen to South Carolina 11, a 28-year-old woman from Charleston, South Carolina. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 28

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/09/1993

PLACE OF BIRTH: Charleston, South Carolina

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Black

OCCUPATION: cultural ambassador

EDUCATION: bachelor’s degree in history

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: none

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject is college-educated and has also served as an educator in middle and high school, so she is proficient in General American English as well as Geechee.

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

RECORDED BY: Jacqueline Springfield

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/04/2022

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Jenkins Orphanage was founded in 1891 by Reverend Daniel Joseph Jenkins. He created this group home because, on a random snowy night in Charleston, he found four boys huddled together tryin’ to stay warm; and at that time period, even though slavery was outlawed, if you didn’t have a home or anybody to go to, legally they can put you in another form of slavery. So he created this group home so kids can have a place to — a safe — a safe space just to be, to grow, learn, eat and to be productive members of society.

Um, the first group home was downtown Charleston that mysteriously burned down, and then he was able to re-create the group home in North Charleston on 50 acres of land, and at this group home the children a part of the Jenkins Orphanage — they went on to be extremely successful, especially wit’ playin’, um, different instruments; a lot of them went on to play in Germany all around the world. They were known as Jenkins Orphanage Band. One of the most famous things that out of this band came to be known as the Charles –the Charleston Dance — which used to be called the Geechee Dance.

So Gullah-Geechee was developed on plantations when my ancestors were isolated. Um, durin’ that time period, it was different from other forms of plantations; you just had overseers that were Black on this plantation, and that created an environment for Black folks to develop their own language and cultures and customs separate from White American culture. So, for example, if I was to greet somebody in Gullah, which that part was developed and created during the antebellum period, I would say “How hena fa du,” or “How yena fa du,” but if I was to greet somebody in Geechee, I would be like “Wha’ goin’ on?” So you can hear which one has a little bit more like English influences versus one that, that does not.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Springfield

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/04/2022

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The speaker exhibits intermittent use of the alveolar nasal /n/ in place of the velar nasal /ŋ/ at the ends of words such as “trying,””during,” and “going.” Note the intermittent use of /d/ for /ð/ in the word “them” and the elimination of the lateral approximant /l/ and voiced alveolar plosive /d/ in “children.”

COMMENTARY BY: Jacqueline Springfield

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/04/2022

The archive provides:

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• 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.