About Us
The International Dialects of English Archive, IDEA, was created in 1997 as a repository of primary source recordings for actors and other artists in the performing arts. Its home is the Department of Theatre and Film at the University Of Kansas, in Lawrence, KS, USA; while associate editors form a global network. All recordings are in English, are of native speakers, and you will find both English language dialects and English spoken in the accents of other languages. The recordings are downloadable and playable for both PC and Macintosh computers. The development of this website is supported, in part, by grants from the University of Kansas General Research Fund and the Kimbell Faculty Enrichment Fund. The Founder, Director, and Webmaster is Professor Paul Meier; the Technical Advisor and Webmaster Emeritus for the archive is Shawn Muller.
Almost every week we add new recordings and text files to the archive, and the menu lists all of our current holdings. Each recording is briefly described so that you may better assess whether or not to download it. Most recordings consist of a standard reading — The Rainbow Passage, or Comma Gets A Cure — and some unscripted speech, averaging four minutes in all. Once you have chosen a recording to download, simply click on it and save it — at no cost to you! To listen to it, however, your computer must have audio software installed capable of playing MP3 soundfiles.
For any questions regarding the downloading or playing of the sound files, please refer to our FAQ (frequently asked questions) page. Please email us if you have any problems, questions or comments.
Contact Us
Professor Paul Meier, Founder, Director, and Webmaster
pmeier@ku.edu
