Mississippi Three - Text
Subject is an African American male, sixty-three years old; born and raised in Grenada County in Central Mississippi,, where he also received his high school education. Now retired, he lists the several jobs he has held in the town of Grenada: bottling company worker, factory worker, cab driver, jailer and security officer. He also talks about being an itenerant cotton picker as a youth with his brother for "cash money." Some of the predominant dialect features are: the omission of most final consonants, and median consonants in word such as 'seven'; substitution of /d/ for 'th' in words such as "that', 'there', 'them', 'those'; substitution of 'i' for 'e' in words such as 'kids', and 'end', and 'ee' for 'i' in some instances such as 'kids' ("keedth wuh lidl''); omission of /r/ in final position, such as 'year', substitution of 'th' for final /s/ in 'is'; vowel glides on words such as 'driver', 'down', 'retired', 'field', 'night'; dropping final unstressed syllables, and eliding or omitting unstressed primary or median syllables: 'before' = "fo'", 'forget' = " 'git", 'Coca-cola' = "kok'kol", 'security' = "se 'kuhtee"; omission of being verbs ("he real nice ol man", "he in Memphis now"). The recording was made by Krista Scott and edited by Paul Meier.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Grenada county six twenty six thirty seven. I, started out workin’ with my father, and later I start workin’ for the Coca Cola bottle company in Grenada. And I worked there, ‘bout seventeen, eighteen year and, uh, they closed down and I drove cab awhile. Then I went to Rockwell International and worked there about sixteen years in Rockwell. I got laid off at Rockwell and I drove cab awhile and I went to the police department, worked there as a jailer for three and a half year. And I, I was sick when I left there cause the job had closed down and I—so I got a security job and worked, just talking two year, about a year and a half, and so I retired. And so now I’m here at home, tryin’ t’ enjoy life, just take things as they come. They’d be goin’—they’d be goin’ to the field, me n’ brother had never went to the field before, and we slipped off and went to, went to the field I don’t know, we were picking cotton or hoeing cotton. And the first day we slipped off and went, the man had a breakdown, we ten o’clock get home that night. (Laughs.) I—I never forget that old man, he stay over in Charleston now. Old man Ham Luke, I think he in Memphis now, and, um, all the kids’d love be around him cause, you know, he was—he was—he was real nice, you know, he—he was a real nice old man, you know, he talked cotton shop and, uh, cotton pickers and things. And me and my brother had never went and I borrowed—and he—he—he workin’ hard and he wasn’t goin’ to give us no money. And I mean, you know, he buy, you know, we had what we need but cash money we didn’t had that, we wanted money to put in our own pockets, we still went to the fields make us some money.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY ELSA RICHARDSON, 28 MARCH, 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG, WITH ASSISTANCE BY OLIVIA MOINTEITH, RESIDENT OF GRENADA, MAY 19, 2008.