South Africa Three - Text

A young black Zulu speaker from rural Mpumalanga, now living in Johannesburg. He speaks about his family background and his relationship with his father, who is a well-known actor in South Africa. The repetitive use of the word "actually" is a typical marker of teenage speech. Notice the lengthening of short vowel sounds (in words like "yellow") and the shortening of the long vowels... The pronunciation of "girls" is typical. The "r" pronunciation should be noted. Also of interest is the use of stress in "FOREtell" and "womanIzer". Recorded 5.23.2000 by Yvette Hardie, edited by Paul Meier 7.17.2000. Running time 00:03:17.

TRANSCRIPTION

Oh I tell you my parents are not married, so when I was born in Pretoria and later on my, my mother’s family moved to Mpumalanga Province so I grew up there then when I was, um, fifteen I moved to Pretoria because my father said I must come there because, uh, I’m starting to being, to be a man I was almost, you know, under, under his (unclear) and, oh, what? And he said, “yeah.” So, yeah, okay I stayed in Pretoria. I did grade eight there. So, okay, I had a problem with, with my grandmother. So my father said (unclear) it’s better to, to, to live with them so I moved to Johannesburg and I did my grade, um, grade nine, Yeah, grade eight, then my grade nine to the arts school

UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY ELIZABETH TERREL, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR TRANSCRIPTIONS, January 16, 2008.