India Six - Text
Recorded 11.26.02 by Jeffrey Gockelas a class project at the University of Kansas. Paul Meier edited this sample 11.26.02. Running time 00:04:33
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
Uh, I was born in, uh, a small town in the southernmost part of India. Uh, if you, if you have seen India, uh, on a, on a, on a map, looks like a triangle; I come from the very tip of the triangle. Uh, lived, uh, ten minutes off the beach. Um, was raised a Christian. Uh, my mother tongue is, um, Tamil, um, but I live right off the border of another state that speaks a different language. So, I can speak that language, too – it’s called Malayalam. And I can speak, uh, this, uh, I can speak English, too, uh, well, uh, as you can see (laughs). Uh, so, I, I, I, I can like speak four languages. I can read and write in two and two of them are just dialects that I can speak and understand but not write. I can say this four line prayer that my mom taught me when I was a kid. I think the translation would be…you know, uh, prayers, they’re in complicated written Tamil – spoken Tamil is very easy and a lot (laughs) different from written Tamil. So I’m trying here to translate that to English. I think it means “My little spirit, pray to God. My whole spirit, pray to God…” uh, “Do not forget the…the blessings he has bestowed upon you…” something like that. (HE RECITES THE PRAYER IN TAMIL) “Amen.”
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY PETE CROSS, 15 JULY, 2008