Newfoundland One - Text
Subject is a white female, born in 1959. Born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Lived for one year in Halifax, Nova Scotia during high school years. University educated. Recorded and edited on April 8, 2000 by Susan Stackhouse. Further editing by Paul Meier July 17, 2000. Of great interest is the change of the vowel sound [o] to [ah] and this is found in the words 'long', 'lot', 'not', 'got', 'St. John's', 'strong', 'won', 'beyond', 'gods', 'pot' and both first and last syllables of 'volleyball' and 'softball'. Also of interest is the use of the closed [a] in words 'that', 'Trepassy', 'places', slightly more open for 'call'. Often the [e] will be closed as well as in 'legend', 'end' and in this sample 'miracle' is pronounced 'mairicle'.
There is an particularly strong example of Canadian Raising (mid central starting point when the following consonant is voiceless) with the words and phrases 'white light', 'out' and this remains present in 'side', 'high', 'sign', 'townie' 'round'. Pay close attention to the pronunciation of 'crowd of friends', 'a lot a places', 'round', 'ye (you) guys', 'whataya at' (hello, how are you doing?), 'go way bye' (go away boy, loosely translated - 'I don't believe you'). Note the light Irish lilt and the crisp [t]'s as in 'twenty', 'great', 'eight o clock', 'white light'. You will notice that the [f] is dropped from 'of' and the 'o' becomes 'a' - 'pot a gold', 'got a lot a words'. Many final consonants are weak. The [r] is always strong - some examples in this sample: 'are', 'air', 'together', 'strong', 'great', 'Irish'. Most vowels preceded or followed by a nasal consonant become nasalized vowels. This dialect utilizes strong nasal resonance. Running time 00:03:23.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
Great crowd of friends, we’ve got, uh, been playing softball with the same group of girls now for twenty years; since 1979, 1980, we’ve been, the core of us been together. And, uh, we have a great time. We-we do two or three road trips a year and, uh, we, uh, we still play ball competitively but we’re-we’re really in-into it for the social side of things. And some of the girls play volleyball with me as well. We’ve been together for probably over ten years; but, uh, my softball friends and I really are, uh, unique, I think; we’ve been together so long that, uh, we’re like sisters, basically. We have a lot of fun together and-and, uh, it’s a long time to be together on-on one team. Well, St. John’s, if you go down the southern shore there’s, uh, there’s Renews and Fermeuse, Ferrylands; there’s, uh, Cappahayden, and, uh, Trepassey. There’s, uh, Jerseyside, Placentia, Argentia. And if you go up the northern shore, there’s, uh, well, some of the bays are Fortune Bay, Placentia Bay, Trinity Bay. There’s, uh, a lot of places that are kind of humorous. They’ve actually changed the names of some of the places. There used to be Hibbs Hole, but they’ve renamed that. There’s, uh, Dildo, a place called Dildo. There’s, uh, Gayside, which they recently named Bayside. In Newfoundland there’s definitely different dialects. The southern shore’s very Irish, so people say, “eight o’clock” [pronounced with a crisp “t”]; you know, very Irish on the southern shore. And, uh. . .some of the outports are-are very strong, their accents. You know, “you’s and we’s,” and my accent is a townie accent--I grew up in St. John’s--so it’s-it’s more of, uh, I guess a tow--, they call it a townie accent. Different from the further out you get in the outports. Uh, “you’s,” “I’s,” “we’s,” you know; and uh, you--, well I say “ye” instead of “you:” “ye-ye guys.” It’s got a lot of words that are different. Um, uh, we say gar--, “Whataya at?” when we say, “Hello, how you doing?,” “Whataya at?” and “Go way, Go way, bye.” Yea--,so once a friend of mine once said that to a fellow that came up to give her something; she said sh-she’d won something and, uh, she said, “Go way, bye!” and he thought she meant,“Go away!” and started to leave.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY LYNN BAKER, 6 AUGUST, 2008