Saskatchewan One - Text
Subject is a white female, born in 1940. Born and raised in Wolseley, Saskatchewan, Canada (Wolseley is situated approximately one hundred kilometres east of Regina. Regina is the capital of the province of Saskatchewan). High School education. Married, mother of three grown children and grandmother of eleven, she considers herself a homemaker. Recorded and edited on May 7, 2000 by Susan Stackhouse.
In this sound there is muscular tension of the larynx. It may be confused with nasalization but is actually throat tension. The pitch, as in all five samples from Saskatchewan, is low and the range narrow. This subject was born, raised and is presently living in rural Saskatchewan, however she has traveled a great deal and perhaps this is why her speech is so articulated. Unlike many Canadians she ensures that the h is present when pronouncing the [wh] in which, when and white. As well this speaker avoids the [d] tapping that is typical in Canadian speech and ensures that all medial [t]'s are sounded. Examples of this can be found in water, beautiful, at it, settled. One can detect the Canadian Raising (mid central starting point when the following consonant is voiceless) in the words house, down, white light, however it is not as evident as in the speech of Eastern Canadians. The [r] is quite strong. Note the pronunciation of the words route (out) instead of (oot) and aunt (ant) instead of (ont).
Further editing 9.23.00 by Paul Meier. Running time: 00:03:34.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
Yes, this house belonged to my aunt and uncle. And (um) we nowadays would refer to it as a two bed—three-bedroom, I guess, home. And they raised two boy and three girls, and themselves lived in this house. And (um) it was a wonderful—I—I thought it was quite a big house when I was a child and came here. And the kitchen had a wonderful cook stove which we still have in use and (uh) they had a piano that was always had music going at it and (uh) lots of company and lots of rich ice cream and (uh) homemade pies. And (um) a thing that, in the prairies, we called a dumbwaiter and (uh) there was a hole in the floor—cut in the floor—and a cupboard went down into the basement to keep things cool. And there was a ring on this cupboard and you pulled the ring and up came the cupboard. And (uh) in this home, my aunt was a meticulous homemaker. And this cupboard was always (uh) covered with screening so nothing could get into it. But when she would pull it up out of the floor, I always thought that there were some people down (unclear) in the basement making all these things. (Laughs) Because each shelf would have pies or cakes or something delicious on it that she would be more than willing to share. (Laughs) And (uh) so when we purchased this home and moved it here, I wanted to keep the dumb waiter down working. However, that was not to be. So we don’t have dumbwaiter now. Well, we’re sitting—(unclear) we’re looking at Qu-Appelle valley which (uh) my grandparents—great-grandparents came to in 1882. And they walked from Brandon to here with an ox-cart and they settled in this area and raised a large family. And some of their family still live here. The Qu-Appelle Valley was formed by glacier action and the Qu-Appelle River runs through it, which was used as a trade route for the (uh) natives to take their furs to Fort Qu-Appelle which is approximately an hour west of here, although considerably longer when you were traveling by water on the river, as the Qu-Appelle River has many bends and twists in it.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JOHN WRIGHT 15 MAY, 2008