Uruguay 1

Listen to Uruguay 1, a 40-year-old man from Montevideo, Uruguay, and Barcelona, Spain. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/07/1980

PLACE OF BIRTH: Barcelona, Spain (but raised in Uruguay)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY:

White/Latino/Spanish/Uruguayan (The speaker says that in Uruguay he’s considered White (of Spanish ancestry), but in the United States he’s considered Latino.)

OCCUPATION: sociological researcher

EDUCATION: Ph.D in sociology

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

The subject lived in Barcelona, Spain, until the age of 4, when he moved to Uruguay. He’s also lived in the United States (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; New Orleans, Louisiana; and New York City).

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker spent his first four years in Spain with his Uruguayan parents. He learned a bit of Catalan at school, but he spoke Spanish with his parents. Back in Uruguay, he forgot Catalan completely. He says he thinks that his English accent is influenced by his wife, who is from New Jersey, in the United States.

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

RECORDED BY: Adelind Horan

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/02/2021

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 was born in Barcelona, Spain. But, uh, both my parents are from Uruguay. Uh, yeah, born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay, in South America. So I was born, uh, in Barcelona because my parents were on political exile. Uh, well, my father was on political exile; my mom was just, you know, hanging out with my father. And, uh, so, um, so I, I went to school there, well, to preschool and then kindergarten, and learning to speak Catalan as one of my first languages, I guess my, my ma- at home we would speak Spanish, but, uh, in, at school we would speak Catalan because it w-, you know, it was a, was a ti-, it was a moment of, you know, transition to democracy in Spain, so there was a revival of, you know, Catalan national sentiment. And you know the — Catalonia had recover- base- like after the, you know, after the, the, you know, the, the, the Sp-, the Spanish congress enacted the new constitution, Cat- Catalonia recovered the, you know, the autonomy of the, you know, the power to, you know, organize schooling the way they wanted, so they actually mandated that Catalan should be taught- s-, but, but basically all schools should be in Catalan, right?

So, uh, but so I began speaking Catalan naturally ee-, uh, in school, and I was starting to speak Catalan to my parents, and they, they got scared, and they decided to go back to Uruguay because they didn’t want me to speak Catalan anymore. Uh, I guess that’s what they say; it’s not that they went back because they want, didn’t want me to speak Catalan, but they didn’t like, they didn’t like it. They actually had a problem with Catalans; they didn’t, they didn’t like how n-uh, nationalist Catalans were, and they felt kind of discriminated for being, you know, uh, South American immigrants and not, eh, you know, not, uh, and not actually speaking Catalan.

Um, then I went back to demne- so the — when I was four I went to Uruguay t-, uh, to live there; and, um, funny story is that when I started, um, kindergarten there, I had a friend — my best friend was called Pablo Peña, and I became convinced that he was able to fly. Like Superman, right? So my parents were very scared because they thought, they thought that I was going to try to fly. Right? So I’m go- [clears throat] I was going to jump, you know out of a, you know, uh, roof or whatever? And, eh, uhnd, eh, but it — and they would try to explain to me that you know that, that people cannot fly, that you know Superman is just a, a, you know, it’s just a — it’s just fantasy; it’s a bi- that human beings cannot fly and would say like, “I know that human beings cannot fly, h-, but he has a, he ha — he’s using some rocket that he hides behind his, I don’t know, cap? T- in order, in order to fly.” So I was fully convinced that Pablo Peña was able to fly not because he was super human but he w-, but because ha the, you know, the rockets that, eh, you know, made possible for him to fly. That’s it.

[The subject reads a passage, in Spanish, from Las Malas by Camila Sosa Villada]: Es profunda la noche: Hiela sobre el parque. Árboles muy antiguos, que acaban de perder sus hojas, parecen suplicar al cielo algo indescifrable pero vital para la vegetación. Un grupo de travestis hace su ronda. Van amparadas por la arboleda. Parecen parte de un mismo organismo, células de un mismo animal. Se mueven así, como si fueran manada. Los clientes pasan en sus automóviles, disminuyen la velocidad al ver al grupo y, de entre todas las travestis, eligen a una que llaman con un gesto. La elegida acude al llamado. Así es noche tras noche.

[English translation: The night is deep: It freezes over the park. Very old trees, which have just lost their leaves, seem to beg the sky for something indecipherable but vital for the vegetation. A group of transvestites makes their rounds. They are protected by the grove. They seem to be part of the same organism, cells of the same animal. They move like this, as if they were a herd. Clients pass by in their cars, slow down when they see the group and, of all the transvestites, choose one who calls with a gesture. The chosen one goes to the call. So it is night after night.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Adelind Horan

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/02/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject’s Spanish dialect includes an interesting component: in words like “amparadas,” “tras,” and “árboles,” the final “s” sound is almost voiceless. Instead, in terms of IPA symbols, there is a slight “X” sound. The same is true for words “mismo” and “organismo.” That “X” sound replaces what many Spanish speakers would pronounce as “z.” He said this aspect of the dialect is found only in parts of Uruguay and Argentina. Sometimes when I listen to him speak English, I hear the impact of this very subtly.

COMMENTARY BY: Adelind Horan

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/03/2021

The archive provides:

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