Oklahoma Eleven - Text
This recording is of a 47-year-old Kiowa American Indian male book clerk at the Oklahoma City University library. Born in Tulsa, OK, 1961, he was raised in Oklahoma City. He has also lived in Virginia Beach, VA.
Throat muscles begin to close in the middle of stressed phrases and words, thus lengthening vowels and consonants in vocal fry. Back of the mouth is flat. Stressed phrases are given additional consideration, weight.
Consonant R is hard and lengthened. Ending plosive consonants such as “d” and “t” are formed, but not released. Consonant S is lengthened in initial, medial, and ending positions. S can also replace a Z sound at the end of a word (eighties, was). Medial “t” is sometimes dropped.
A short “uh” sound comes before an “O” diphthong (goat, New Mexico) and an “oo” vowel (goose). The “I” diphthong (surprising, tried, implied) loses its second vowel. Short “i” (kit) lengthens.
The personal pronoun “I” is replaced by “uh.”
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I grew up in Oklahoma during the first uh twenty-five years of my life uh in growing up Oklahoma seems to have a um me a laid back and um um yet hardy flavor to the voices and um I noticed whenever I lived on the east coast uh for a while and the uh…mid to late eighties uh and how differently east coasters speak uh their manner of speaking, at least to me as I lived there was uh maybe a little, little louder and more rushed at times whereas I think uh. Oklahomans uh or Midwesterners perhaps might have a more…um uh perhaps gentle quality to their voices uh ss I’m probably more used in my cultural background um with uh…the uh...customs and um…family relations…uh…at least with my own uh lineage uh my talk I would probably say culturally a little slower…uh and more uh more about open-minded questions like you know “How are you doing?”…and uh, um…”What’s been going on?” and so forth…uh…and as I got more into um uh perhaps my college work and spending time on the east coast uh things are more, I would probably say dialoguing is a little more purposeful and it doesn’t sound quite the same way I guess when maybe you’re at home or maybe even just like you know with with really close members of your community um uh it sounds a little different uh, I spent time mostly in Oklahoma uh, there’s been some years in Virginia Beach uh, I worked out of state uh with uh folks in uh New Mexico around the Santa Fe area and uh also in uh...uh Ridgecrest, North Carolina uh area also there I don’t know if that’s the Appalachian Mountains or not or it’s in that uh that mountain range there in the US there in the southeastern United States uh and I’ve also uh vacationed some in like Canada in the northwest and in Seattle and so forth and then a little, little tiny area of maybe the uh west coast like visiting San Francisco and what not but probably most of my uh cultural and speaking background has more to do with uh I would say Oklahoma and the western United States and um the uh accents that uh you pick up naturally as you know are born and raised.. you know here is this part of the US.
SAMPLE RECORDED, SPEECH TRANSCRIBED, AND NOTES WRITTEN BY BEN CORBETT ON JUNE 29, 2009
Running time: 06:25