South Africa Ten - Text
A twenty-year-old so-called "colored" female discusses her background in Cape Town, where she
was born. During her childhood she lived in several small towns in the Western Cape
before moving to Pretoria, where she is a student at present.
Her articulation of vowel phonemes is quite typical of the Cape Colored dialect despite
the three years that she has spent in Pretoria. Also typical and evident in her speech is the
trilled /R/. This is most notable in initial and medial pre-vocalic positions. Another
feature of the Cape colored dialect is displayed in her use of word-stress in certain words.
She favours emphasis on final syllables, especially in words that span three to four
syllables. For example: 'unsanitary' was stressed as "unsaniTAri."
Interviewed by Marth Munro in October 2005
Running time: 03:10
Recorded Karina Lemmer, 2005. Edited by Paul Meier, October 4, 2005.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Cape Town, um, in a small place called Lavis (Bishop Lavis). Then we moved to Kuils River where I grew up all my years. I went to school there and I did my first year as a drama student at Tygerberg College. And then I came over to do my second year in Pretoria. And I’m now doing my third year. And, um, well, Cape Town is a very, very nice place. It is a nice scenery. About our language, the way we speak or our accent, should I say. It’s—it’s very slang, lots of slang. Um, we speak—when you’re Afrikaans-speaking, you mix your English with Afrikaans, as well. And, um, especially the way the gangsters speak, There's some stuff that we use as "Nai, it's duidelik", which means, um, “No, it’s cool.” And we say, um, “Nai, my bru” [broer = brother]—“No, my brother”, stuff like that. So, ja.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JOHN WRIGHT 20 AUGUST, 2008. EMENDATIONS OFFERED BY WINSLOW MOMBERG, 03 MARCH, 2009.