Speech Accent Archive Named Outstanding Reference Site

The Speech Accent Archive of George Mason University has been named one of 30 outstanding web sites for reference information. This recognition comes from MARS: Emerging Technologies in Reference section of the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association. Congratulations to the faculty, students, and native speakers who have contributed to the site.

Started as a class project in 1999 by linguistics professor Steven Weinberger, the online database has language samples of speakers of different langugages reading the same passage. The audio clips  are paired with a transcript.

Weinberger says, “It's free, it’s accessible and it provides valuable data. I think the most unique part of it is that it has more than 1,000 talkers speaking their accents with the same paragraph. This way, anyone can do an instant and systematic comparison.”