Help: A linguistic project

[grendel]

Two technical things:
1) If you're new to audacity, you may have problems with saving your recordings... So, instead of selecting “Save Project As”, choose “Export As WAV” or “Export As MP3”. WAV files are great, although their size can be big. If you decide to export your files as MP3 (which isn't that necessary), you'll need to do one more thing – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help...&item=lame-mp3
2) Remember that I cannot answer your PMs because of forum restrictions. However, if you prefer to contact me privately instead of posting here, feel free to send me an e-mail: gkrawczyk6 at gmail.com

And I've got a silly question: an Australian person is an Aussie, most of you guys are Kiwis... What do you actually call a South African? (forgot to ask the South Africans when I had the chance...)

[Ixion]

A South African is called either a Saffer, or a cunt. Depending on . Or hairyback, a term of endearment. trust me on this.

Who was Adam Mickiewicz? And why did they name a University after him?

[Slyer]

I go with saffa cunt.

[grendel]

A South African is called either a Saffer, or a cunt. Depending on . Or hairyback, a term of endearment. trust me on this.

I go with saffa cunt.

Lovely names, these... I'll try to remember

Who was Adam Mickiewicz? And why did they name a University after him?

Adam Mickiewicz was a prominent and inspiring Romantic poet of the 19th century. He was living in exile in Russia for some time, which had a great impact on his patriotism, reflected in his writing. One of his greatest works is Pan Tadeusz (literally 'Mr Ted' ), which includes the author's memories of Poland before the wars that divided the country. You could say that, nowadays, he means just as much to Poles as Goethe does to Germans, or Pushkin to the Russians.
Why did he become the University's patron? It's a good question; it is said that the dean of the Philosophy/History Department proposed the candidate in 1955, and I'm not really sure why it was Mickiewicz and not some other patriotic bloke, but apparently what others had had in view was to name the institution after Joseph Stalin, so something had to be done quickly in order to prevent it

[grendel]

Hello again, my biker friends...

I wish you all the best in the new year 2009(!) and I'd like to remind you about my request (as well as thank those who have already helped!!!)
I'm presenting my first results this Tuesday to my fellow phonetics/phonology students... Although I haven't got many samples, I hope we'll have a nice discussion on the topic and some useful comments will pop up.

Take care & be good

G

[Fudmucker]

Sorry I'm too late to participate in your research.
Here's a site with examples of many of the dialects of South African English:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/africa/southa...outhafrica.htm
(South Africa 25 is a good example)

South Africans are called 'Saffricans' or 'Sowfafricans'. :

We can tell Ozzies and Kiwis from Saffricans because they speak differently to both us and the English...and because they can't play cricket very well.

(Ducks to avoid hurled abuse and sundry missiles)

Good luck with your research.

[grendel]

Sorry I'm too late to participate in your research.
Here's a site with examples of many of the dialects of South African English:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/africa/southa...outhafrica.htm
(South Africa 25 is a good example)

South Africans are called 'Saffricans' or 'Sowfafricans'. :

We can tell Ozzies and Kiwis from Saffricans because they speak differently to both us and the English...and because they can't play cricket very well.

(Ducks to avoid hurled abuse and sundry missiles)

Good luck with your research.

Hey, you're not late at all!
I'm going to present my initial findings this Tuesday, but I still need a larger number of recordings in order to have 'full' results, so to speak. The whole thing finishes around June, however I'd like to have the 'recordings part' finished a couple of months before that, so as to have time for writing about it...

So, if your PC (or Mac or Laptop...) is equipped with everything that's needed, I could still use your help.

As to the website, I know it very well but thank you for the link anyway. I am also aware of most of the differences among the three accents (as well as within them). What I am interested in are specific features that seem to be undergoing some kind of a change nowadays and I wanna find out how far the 'new' variants have spread already and which target groups are affected to what extent (hence the questionnaire about the age, sex, region etc.). I will also try to explain where this change comes from and what possible implications for the future it may have...

Looking forward to your input if you have some time to spare

G