India Seven - Text
Female born in Gujarat, India. Grew up in Zambia, Africa where she learned to speak English upon entering school. Moved to Lawrence, Kansas, USA, to attend college. Though fluent in English she has just a trace of an Indian dialect. Only once does she not fully articulate the 'th' sound. Her tone tends to rise at the end of words, and she drops the 'd' sound in words like 'and.' A strong 'i' sound is apparent when she says 'India' and 'Hindi'. Recorded 12.05.02 by Elisabeth Ahrens as a class project at the University of Kansas. Paul Meier edited this sample 12.05.02. Running time 00:05:23
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in a town called Annan. It's in the state of Gujarat in India. Um after that when I was about three years old, uh my family moved to Zambia in Africa and we live in the capital city which is Lusaka and I live there ever since. And when I was about 17 I came here to go to college, so...but, um I frequently visit India almost every other year so I haven't really lost touch with my native background and uh as far as languages go I can speak my mother tongue which is Murati and I can speak the national language of India which is Hindi. Um and then in Zambia they speak English and in India also English is like a second language so um that's quite a common thing. So I learned how to speak English when I was really like, probably like four or five. And then um in Zambia they have other tribal languages but those are kind of hard to pick up um so but I mean I now a little bit to get around just to get by maybe and then once you live outside India it's a little tougher like you lose a little bit of touch with your...like I can speak my language pretty fluently but I can't read or write like it it sounds pretty strange but it's a fact. Ok um basically if you want to say uh 'hello' you say 'namaste' and usually do that with hands like that, and that's in Hindi and if you want to say um 'how are you' like you would say 'kei esei hou' basically and that's in Hindi. In Murati it's almost the same instead of 'namaste' you'd say 'namascar'. And uh instead of 'kei esei hou' you'd say 'kasa ahe.' Indians in Zambia basically have a...they might have a little bit of an African um tone to their speaking like they might speak, say their words a little different like let's say the word like lets say the word 'carpenter' or maybe a person in Zambia would say like 'carpenter' but you're, maybe a person in India would say it different 'carpenter.'
Transcribed by Elisabeth Ahrens