Zacatecas 2

Listen to Zacatecas 2, a 46-year-old woman from Sombrerete, Zacatecas, Mexico, who has also lived in Texas, in the United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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Please note: The subject reads only a small portion of Comma Gets a Cure.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 46

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/10/1971

PLACE OF BIRTH: Sombrerete, Zacatecas, Mexico

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Mexican American

OCCUPATION: cook

EDUCATION: seventh grade

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

The subject moved to Fort Worth, Texas, United States, when she was 16 years old. She then moved to Florida in 2012 where she lived in Orlando, Tallahassee, and Gainesville.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Her parents are from Sombrerete. When she moved to the United States, she started learning English by taking a three-month class in church. Since then, she has worked to improve her English by listening to others. (Because of her poor English reading skills, she reads just the first sentence of Comma Gets a Cure.)

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

RECORDED BY: Scott Stackhouse

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/03/2018

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 from Sombrerete, Zacatecas, Mexico, and my hometown is, is small. Uh, when I grow up, um, I was the first child in my family. Um, I’m very, um, interactive, uh, interactive, uh, girl. Um, I was — I like to be happy. Uh, I have very difficult time in my life, but, eh, the time was difficult, but this made me, um, feel strong, uh, feel like nothing is impossible. Uh, you make, uh, whatever goal you have in you life you can make em, you need to pursue. Uh, my best, um, my grand, my big, um, goal when I was, um, uh, when I was, a teenager, it was come to United States. So I come to United States when I was 16 years old. Um, I have difficult time to cross the, the line — the Mexico to United States — but, uh, we did, we did, we did it. So, um, after this, worked so hard to, um, help my mom, uh, with money to, so, to the family. This way the family, surv, surv, survive? And, then, my first, um, and beautiful gift, eh, God give me is, uh, Freddy.

[The subject speaks the following in Spanish]: Muy buenas tardes. Que tengan todos un excelente y hermoso dia.

[English translation: Good afternoon. Have an excellent and beautiful day.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Scott Stackhouse

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/03/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject uses [a] for the STRUT set in “up, nothing, was, money” and also for the word “mom.” The vowel [ɪ] of the KIT set moves to a tense [i] in “difficult, this, big, give,” and “gift.” For the PRICE set, the subject changes the second sound of the diphthong [aɪ] to a more tense, close vowel [i], hence [ai] in words like “line, time, life,” and sometimes “my.” The final plosive consonants are eliminated in words such as “work, hard, gift, first, made,” and “old.” The word “best” loses the final /t/, and the initial /b/ is spoken as [v]. Both consonant sounds [ð] and [t] are dentalized in first position as in “this, the,” and “time.” The initial sound [j] is replaced with [d͡ ʒ] in the word “you.” The GOAT set vowel is reduced to a vowel near [o] in “home.” Note the three syllables pronounced in the word “family.”

COMMENTARY BY: Scott Stackhouse

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/04/2018

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.