North Carolina Nine - Text
Subject is an Anglo Saxon male, born August 25, 1926, 74 years old at the time of recording in
August 2000. He was born in Oak City, N.C. and raised in a rural area near the village of his birth.
He grew up on a farm. His mother graduated from high school, but his father had just a few years of
formal schooling. However, among middle class families of his time and place there was a thirst for
education. Religion reinforced this aspiration. Reading was expected and encouraged.
There was a value put on learning for its own sake, and not just to get a bigger income.
From a very young age he wanted to be a newspaper writer. His sister taught him to read by age five,
and he graduated from high school just before his sixteenth birthday. Went to Atlantic Christian college
(NC) for two years, served in the army for two more and returned to graduate from the prestigious
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in journalism.
He has never lived out of the state, but residencies more than fifty miles from his place of
birth were all in the more western parts of the state: Raleigh, Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
He does not believe his accent has changed from exposure to others. However I do notice one
inconsistency which may have been influenced by living "out West", and that is his inconsistent
pronunciation of the "r". In the phrase "deserted square", the "r" is pronounced in the first word
and eliminated in the second. It is also eliminated in "father" and "mother", as it is in most, but
not all words.It is consistently eliminated as a final consonant.
Another inconsistency may be found in "ing" endings. Usually he contracts them to "in'", as in
waitin'", "surprisin'" and "sewin'", but in "running" and an occasional other word, the full "ing"
is pronounced. Please note that the first story, about the Christmas present, has a rather formal
cadence and is a story I have heard him tell before. In order to get a more natural speech, I asked
him to tell me a second, about his going off on an adventure. His most conversational tone is found
in his brief introduction about himself.
Like many Southern speakers, the diphthong in "time" , "mind", "cry" and "tire" loses it
second element. . Final "y" ("very", "ability", "freely") ends in a short high vowel.
The "I" in "sing" and "thing" and "ring" approximates the AE sound of "cat". The first element
of the diphthong in "town" uses a higher front vowel, although "our" uses the lower vowel."Clear",
hear"and "year" all use the diphthong, not a single vowel.
Note the pronunciation of the first element of the diphthong in "Toy" and "enjoy".
Words using this sound may become two syllables. Individual words with distinctive pronunciations
are "help" with the "l" eliminated ("hep"); "tobacco" ends with a schwa; "hoof' is OO; "fairy"
is pronounced using the A in"cat".
Recorded by Pat Toole 8.04.00; edited by Paul Meier March, 2001. Running time: 00:04.10
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was a boy of about eleven livin’ in eastern North Carolina on a tobacco farm. My mother an’ father—my mother an’ father, uh, were parents of six children. It was the depression years but we didn’t know that. It was Christmas time. If ever there was a person who knew how to keep Christmas, it was my mother. She became so excited when the holiday drew near. When I lay in bed at night, I could hear b—in the room below me the sewing machine running an’ I knew she was sewin’ doll dresses an’ other gifts for the children. That year I was bringing in stove wood in the cold evenin’s an’ sayin’ over in my mind the poem I was goin’ to recite at the church Sunday school party: “Why do bells at Christmas ring,/ Why do little children sing.” I wanted to say it in a strong, clear voice an’ I knew that mother would be proud of me. That evenin’ I lay in front of the fire an’ looked at the mail order catalogue. It was full of very interestin’ things. I looked at them with curiosity, but not with any expectation of receivin’ any of the toys. Those were the kind of toys children who lived in town received. On the cover of the catalogue, there was a ceramic reindeer, one little gold-painted hoof raised. That was what I wanted to get Mother for Christmas. She did not have anything just pretty to enjoy. She had useful things . . .
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY SANDRA LINDBERG, 6 MAY, 2008.