How to use this archive

This site works best on a 800 x 600 resolution monitor or larger. The native languages of the speakers are listed in the window on the left. Click on a sample and that particular page will appear. There may be more than one speaker of each native language, and this will be indicated. We use the name of the language that the speaker uses.

You may need to get the Quicktime plug-in to play the sound clips. It may take a minute or so for the Quicktime speech sample to load, but this depends upon the speed of your connection. Each individual sample page contains a sound control bar, a chart of the answers to 7 demographic questions, a phonetic transcription of the sample, a link to the speaker's phonological generalizations, and a link to a map showing the speaker's place of birth.

The archive also contains a set of native language phonetic inventories so that you can perform some contrastive analyses. If a particular sample does not have a phonetic transcription nor a generalizations page, please be patient--all samples will eventually be complete. We are adding new samples weekly, and the pages are updated frequently.

To hear each sample, just click on the pause/play button of the sound control bar. You can also control the volume, the speed, and the cueing, by clicking on the other iconic buttons:

To see the speaker's phonological generalizations, click on this icon on each page: .   To learn more about the phonological generalizations, click on this generalization definitions page.

To see a pop-up window of a map of the speaker's place of birth, click on this icon: . The archive also contains a world map with indicators of representative speakers from different regions. Click on the accent atlas to see this map.

The archive is continually growing and changing, so check back periodically.