Nova Scotia Four - Text
Subject is a white female, born in 1977. Born and raised in Glace Bay, a community on Cape Breton Island which is a part of (attached by a causeway) Nova Scotia, Canada. After attending college for one year she trained as a massage therapist and two months before the interview left the island for the first time and moved to the mainland (Halifax, N.S.) in order to pursue her career. She is also a wife and mother of two young children.
Of interest is the use of the closed [a] in the words 'largest', 'Canada', 'class', 'have', 'grandparents' and slightly more open [a] in words and phrases 'small town', 'calling', 'call centre', 'all', 'walk'. There is an especially strong example of Canadian Raising (mid central starting point when the following consonant is voiceless) with the words 'out', 'about', 'house', 'around', 'underground', 'town', 'now'. Also a strong example of Canadian Raising with the phrase 'white light' and 'coal mines/miners', 'kinda made me cry', 'like'. Note the change of the vowel [o] to [ah] in words and phrases 'laid off', 'jobs', 'up on the board', 'off the board', 'coal mines/miners', 'not', 'gods', 'pot'. More often than not the 'g' is dropped from 'ing' endings. The following phrases contain particularly strong examples of the Glace Bay dialect: 'talkin last night', 'wantin someone to help them out', 'phasin them out', 'movin away', 'sittin around the kitchen drinkin tea 'n havin' sweets', 'what's goin on', 'whatcha doin'. Often [th] in a final position will become [t], as in 'the livingroom will just sit there wit nobody in it'. The word 'and' is regularly contracted to 'n'. The contraction of 'you are' to 'you're' is pronounced 'yer'. Popular sayings include the usage of the word 'bye' (boy) as in 'what's goin on bye', 'yer from the bay, bye'. Note that the speaker also uses 'yer from the pier dear'. Of importance and in keeping with the lilting Cape Breton dialect is the chuckling and laughing throughout. Cape Breton Island has a strong music, drama and entertainment/party culture, including ceilidhs (kitchen parties) and revue/sketch comedy. Cape Breton playwrights include Sheldon Currie, Michael Melski and Bryden MacDonald. Recorded and edited on June 3, 2000 by Susan Stackhouse. Further editing by Paul Meier, July 17, 2000. Running time 00:03:16
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
Phasing them out, there's not too much, pretty much everybody seems to be moving away. At one point back in the 1900s, when the coal mines were...booming uh Glace Bay was the largest town in Canada and um, the busiest, and that's where every--all the industry was taking place. I was listening to the radio and it kind of made me cry because there was uh, with the coal miners being laid off some of their wives don't work, and there's one woman on the radio saying that she didn't have food to feed her baby and she was calling up, wanting someone to help them out and they were talking about putting up a call center in Sydney, so that may provide some jobs, but there only low-paying jobs, some of these coal miners made really good money, they'd get bonuses for going underground plus all the overtime. When we were in grade 11, our English teacher, one of the first couple of days of class, he put the sentence 'did you eat yet' up on the board, and the first few people were reading it off the board, and when you read something you read the words you see, but as it went around, people were remembering it so it went 'geet yet', everybody starting going 'geet yet', 'geet yet' *laughs* There's no g at the end of this 'what's goin on' what's goin, goin, it's not whatcha doin, there's not g at the end of...bye, that's another popular, what's goin on, bye, that's what they, you from the bay bye, or you're from the pier dear *laughs* My grandmother was talking last night, she said that nobody called a kettle a kettle, it was always the kittle because they grew up to her grandparents, and that's what they all called it so for years she never ever knew the work kettle it was always a kittle *laughs* Cape Bretoners love to party, yeah, um basically there's a bunch of people who get around and round the kitchen and play music or if--if you go to someone in Cape Breton's house more than likely you're going to be sitting around the kitchen drinking tea and having sweets,or even if it's a party it's all going to end up in the kitchen, everything--that's where everything ends up, you sit around, play cards, and everything, and the living room will just sit there with nobody in it.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY FAITH HARVEY 7 JULY 2008