English Dialects

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Znex
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Znex »

Imralu wrote: 12 May 2018 04:40
Imralu wrote: 18 Feb 2018 01:01LOT/CLOTH: [ɔ]
GONE: [ɔː] (marginal)

THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE: [oː], before a vowel [oːɹ]
It's not British English though, which I think is more his point.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Creyeditor »

Rate my English 101 [:D]
Mine probably screams German. One big reason might be that I merge TRAP and DRESS vowels. I just find it really hard to distinguish these. I also sometimes confuse CURE and NURSE vowels. Another problems are low vowels. LOT and CLOTH are both very variable for me, often depending on the person I am speaking to. From time to time I exaggerate the rhotacity of vowels, and of course lettER sometimes makes me slip an /ɐ/ in.

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP ɛ
LOT ɑ~ɔ~ɐ
STRUT ɐ
FOOT ʊ
BATH a~ɑ~ɛ
CLOTH oː~ɔ
NURSE ɝ
FLEECE iː
FACE ɛi
PALM ɑː
THOUGHT ɔː
GOAT oʊ
GOOSE uː
PRICE ai
CHOICE ɔɪ
MOUTH au
NEAR iːɻ
SQUARE ɛːɻ
START ɑːɻ
NORTH ɔːɻ
FORCE ɔːɻ
CURE juːɻ~ɝ
HappY i
LettER ə˞ ~ ɐ
CommA ə~ɐ
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Salmoneus »

Imralu wrote: 12 May 2018 04:40
Salmoneus wrote: 12 May 2018 00:27
Egerius wrote: 11 May 2018 21:07 LOT/CLOTH [ɒ ~ ɔ]
NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT [ɔː ~ oː]
LOT /O/ - non-native. Although at first, this might sound like a lot/cloth split - but that would also suggest European, because the lot/cloth split is something that's dying out in native British English, but that still gets emulated by conservative foreign education systems. I appreciate you aren't actually splitting, but since I don't have an intuitive sense of the split myself, as soon as I hear a few "orfs" and "gorns", I'm going to think you're either a cousin of the queen, or a German...
THOUGHT /o:/ - big one for me! /O:/ is quite low - if it raises, I'm liable to interpret it as /oU/. Raising in CHOICE is less egregious because there's no phonemic confusion possible, but it still sounds non-native.
Imralu wrote: 18 Feb 2018 01:01LOT/CLOTH: [ɔ]
GONE: [ɔː] (marginal)

THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE: [oː], before a vowel [oːɹ]
Well, Australian is basically non-native really, isn't it?

But seriously, there's a whole bunch of Australian things that, if I heard them anywhere outside of the context of a specifically southern hemisphere accent, I'd assume were non-native. Certainly when they were paired with otherwise SSBE features.

[thought? really? I can easily imagine an Australian saying 'lort' or 'gorn'... but I can't imagine them saying 'low' for 'law' or 'so' for 'saw'. I'm not saying you're wrong, obviously, but unless you've got a REALLY strong and weird accent, I think you must mean something different by /o/ than what I think of that as meaning...]
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Znex »

Basically what happens in AuE:

/ʌ/ > [ɐ]
/ɑː/ > [ɐː]
/ɒ/ > [ɔ~ɞ]
/ɔ(r)/ > [oː]
/oʊ/ > [əʉ]
/u/ > [ʉː]

Hence something like:
cup /kʌp/ > [kʰɐp̚]
carp /kɑp/ > [kʰɐːp̚]
cop /kɒp/ > [kʰɔp̚]
corpse /kɔrps/ > [kʰoːps]
cope /koʊp/ > [kʰəʉp̚]
coop /kup/ > [kʰʉːp̚]
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Sumelic »

Salmoneus wrote: 12 May 2018 15:27
Imralu wrote: 12 May 2018 04:40
Salmoneus wrote: 12 May 2018 00:27
Egerius wrote: 11 May 2018 21:07 LOT/CLOTH [ɒ ~ ɔ]
NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT [ɔː ~ oː]
LOT /O/ - non-native. Although at first, this might sound like a lot/cloth split - but that would also suggest European, because the lot/cloth split is something that's dying out in native British English, but that still gets emulated by conservative foreign education systems. I appreciate you aren't actually splitting, but since I don't have an intuitive sense of the split myself, as soon as I hear a few "orfs" and "gorns", I'm going to think you're either a cousin of the queen, or a German...
THOUGHT /o:/ - big one for me! /O:/ is quite low - if it raises, I'm liable to interpret it as /oU/. Raising in CHOICE is less egregious because there's no phonemic confusion possible, but it still sounds non-native.
Imralu wrote: 18 Feb 2018 01:01LOT/CLOTH: [ɔ]
GONE: [ɔː] (marginal)

THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE: [oː], before a vowel [oːɹ]
Well, Australian is basically non-native really, isn't it?

But seriously, there's a whole bunch of Australian things that, if I heard them anywhere outside of the context of a specifically southern hemisphere accent, I'd assume were non-native. Certainly when they were paired with otherwise SSBE features.

[thought? really? I can easily imagine an Australian saying 'lort' or 'gorn'... but I can't imagine them saying 'low' for 'law' or 'so' for 'saw'. I'm not saying you're wrong, obviously, but unless you've got a REALLY strong and weird accent, I think you must mean something different by /o/ than what I think of that as meaning...]
Geoff Lindsey says that "thought" can actually approach IPA cardinal [o] (the 7th cardinal vowel) in "standard southern British" accents. Since "goat" is something like [əʊ] in many British accents, I don't think it would be particularly close to the 7th cardinal vowel. It makes some sense to me, since my NORTH/FORCE vowel is something like [o˞], and THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE in British accents sounds to me like it has a similar quality (non-rhotic, obviously) to my NORTH/FORCE.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Ælfwine »

Might as well give this a shot.

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ä
STRUT ʌ (or even ə)
FOOT ʊ
BATH æː
CLOTH ɑː
NURSE ə˞
FLEECE ɪi ~ i
FACE eɪ
PALM äː
THOUGHT ɑ
GOAT oʊ (first element can be slightly unrounded)
GOOSE ʉː (can be diphthongized like ɨʉ)
PRICE ɐi
CHOICE ɔi~oi
MOUTH æʉ
NEAR iɚ
SQUARE eɚ
START ɑɚ
NORTH oɚ
FORCE oɚ
CURE jɚ
HappY i
LettER ə˞
CommA ə

Of course, I can totally be selecting the wrong IPA symbols for the things I hear in my head. Here's what I do know:

/u/ is fairly fronted, approaching /ʉ/
The difference between [ɚ] and say [ɝ] are very difficult to tell for me. I could be using [ɝ] when I mean [ɚ] or vice versa, so I've generalized them all as /ɚ/ in my idiolect.
Some vowels can be diphthongized. Stressed /i/ for example can be diphthongized to /ɪi/ (common from what I hear). Alternatively, /oɚ/ and /ɑɚ/ can be monophthongized to /o̴ ɑ̴/.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by qwed117 »

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɑ ~ CLOTH* ɑː
STRUT ə
FOOT ɯ̹̽
BATH æ
NURSE ɝː
FLEECE i
FACE ɛɪ̯ ~ eɪ
PALM ɑ ~ THOUGHT* ɑː
GOAT ɤ̞ʊ
GOOSE u
PRICE aɪ̯
CHOICE o̞ɪ̯
MOUTH aʊ
NEAR iɝ ~ iːɝ
SQUARE ɛɝ ~ eɝ
START äɻ̬
NORTH ɔɻ̬~oɻ̬ ~ FORCE* oːɻ̬
CURE ɝː
HappY iˑ
LettER ɝ
CommA ʌ

Yikes...

*length not contrastive/present all the time.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Well, here's mine

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɑ
STRUT ʌ (it's definitely not actually [ʌ] but it's not quite [ə] either)
FOOT ʊ
BATH æ
CLOTH ɑ
NURSE ɚ
FLEECE i
FACE eɪ
PALM ɑ (though historical /l/ has been reinserted into most of the words with orthographic l)
THOUGHT ɑ
GOAT oʊ
GOOSE ʉu
PRICE (split between RIDER aɪ and WRITER əɪ)
CHOICE ɔɪ
MOUTH aʊ
NEAR i˞
SQUARE ɛ˞
START ɑ˞
NORTH o˞
FORCE o˞
CURE jɚ
HappY i
LettER ə˞
CommA ə
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Re: English Dialects

Post by opipik »

Here are my vowels:
Spoiler:
KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ if I try, otherwise ɛ
LOT ɑ
STRUT ɐ
FOOT ʊ
BATH ɑː or æ, depends if I try
CLOTH ɔ? ɑ? I don't know.
NURSE ɚ
FLEECE iː
FACE ɛɪ
PALM ɑː or ɑl
THOUGHT ɔː, can't bring myself to merge lot/cloth and thought
GOAT ɔʊ
GOOSE ʉː (might be ʉu?)
PRICE aɪ
CHOICE ɔɪ
MOUTH aʊ
NEAR iˑɻ
SQUARE ɛˑɻ? ɘ˞ː?
START ɑˑɻ
NORTH ɔɻ
FORCE ɔˑɻ
CURE jɚˑ
HappY ɪ
CommA ə
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Re: English Dialects

Post by elemtilas »

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ä
STRUT ʌ
FOOT ɵ
BATH æ
CLOTH ä
NURSE ɹ
FLEECE i
FACE e
PALM ä (l-coloured, but not sure how to notate that)
THOUGHT ä
GOAT o
GOOSE u
PRICE əi
CHOICE ʊi
MOUTH æu
NEAR i˞ ᶦɹ (disyllabic)
SQUARE e ᶦɹ (disyllabic)
START ˞a˞ ((nearly) disyllabic)
NORTH oɹ (disyllabic)
FORCE oɹ (disyllabic)
CURE ᶦuɹ (disyllabic)
HappY i
LettER ɹ
CommA ʌ
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Khemehekis »

How I pronounce the vowels:

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɑ
STRUT ʌ
FOOT ʊ
BATH a
CLOTH ɑ
NURSE ɝ
FLEECE i
FACE ei
PALM ɑ
THOUGHT ɑ
GOAT ou
GOOSE u
PRICE ai
CHOICE ɔi
MOUTH au
NEAR iɹ
SQUARE æɹ
START ɑɹ
NORTH ɔɹ
FORCE ɔɹ
CURE ʊɹ
happY i
lettER ɚ
commA ə
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Nortaneous »

KIT /i/ [ɪ]
DRESS /e/ [ɛ]
TRAP /æ/ [æ] modulo GenAm æ-raising, which is arguably phonemic because æ was raised differently (to [æi̯]) before [ŋ], but this no longer applies, so novel æ + [ŋ] sequences can be -eə̯ŋ- rather than -æi̯ŋ- (bank [bæi̯ŋk], Bernanke [bɚˈneə̯ŋkɪi̯])
LOT = PALM
STRUT /ʌ/ [ʌ]
FOOT /u/ [ʊ]
BATH = TRAP
CLOTH = THOUGHT
NURSE /ɝ/ [ɚ]
FLEECE /ij/ [ɪi̯]
FACE /ej/ [ɛɪ̯]
PALM /ɑ/ [ɑ]
THOUGHT /o/ [ɔə̯]
GOAT /ʌw/ [əʊ̯]
GOOSE /uw/ [ʉ̈u̯]
PRICE /aj/ [a(e̯)] modulo Canadian raising
CHOICE /oj/ [o̝e̯]
MOUTH /æw/ [æɞ̯]
NEAR /ir/ [iɚ̯]
SQUARE /er/ [eɚ̯]
START /ar/ [ɔɚ̯]
NORTH /or/ [o̝ɚ̯]
FORCE = NORTH
CURE I'm not sure what this is supposed to be. ur > or, but jur > (usually) jɚ.
happY /ɨ/ [ɪi̯]
lettER /ɚ/ [ɚ]
commA /ə/ [ə]

Nothing terribly divergent from GenAm other than phonetics -- marry-merry-Merry merged, cot-caught and pin-pen unmerged. There are, however, no secondary stresses in the names of the days of the week; it is an unfortunately common misconception that there are, brought about by people who read English more than hear it, and pronounce things as they are spelled, rather than as they are.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Znex »

Nortaneous wrote: 05 Oct 2018 08:08 KIT /i/ [ɪ]
DRESS /e/ [ɛ]
TRAP /æ/ [æ] modulo GenAm æ-raising, which is arguably phonemic because æ was raised differently (to [æi̯]) before [ŋ], but this no longer applies, so novel æ + [ŋ] sequences can be -eə̯ŋ- rather than -æi̯ŋ- (bank [bæi̯ŋk], Bernanke [bɚˈneə̯ŋkɪi̯])
LOT = PALM
STRUT /ʌ/ [ʌ]
FOOT /u/ [ʊ]
BATH = TRAP
CLOTH = THOUGHT
NURSE /ɝ/ [ɚ]
FLEECE /ij/ [ɪi̯]
FACE /ej/ [ɛɪ̯]
PALM /ɑ/ [ɑ]
THOUGHT /o/ [ɔə̯]
GOAT /ʌw/ [əʊ̯]
GOOSE /uw/ [ʉ̈u̯]
PRICE /aj/ [a(e̯)] modulo Canadian raising
CHOICE /oj/ [o̝e̯]
MOUTH /æw/ [æɞ̯]
NEAR /ir/ [iɚ̯]
SQUARE /er/ [eɚ̯]
START /ar/ [ɔɚ̯]
NORTH /or/ [o̝ɚ̯]
FORCE = NORTH
CURE I'm not sure what this is supposed to be. ur > or, but jur > (usually) jɚ.
happY /ɨ/ [ɪi̯]
lettER /ɚ/ [ɚ]
commA /ə/ [ə]

Nothing terribly divergent from GenAm other than phonetics -- marry-merry-Merry merged, cot-caught and pin-pen unmerged. There are, however, no secondary stresses in the names of the days of the week; it is an unfortunately common misconception that there are, brought about by people who read English more than hear it, and pronounce things as they are spelled, rather than as they are.
You mean like [ˈθɜɹzdeɪ̯] instead of [ˈθɜɹzdi]? Huh, I know older folk around Sydney pronounce the days of the week with a weak [di] too actually.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Shemtov »

I'm not sure exactly of my vowels- I'm basically General American, but my /ə ʌ/ might be slightly untypical from GA, as I have a light Philly accent, and the stronger varieties of Philly Dialect do weird things to unstressed vowels, but for me, it's pretty much unoticible unless you're doing a narrow transcription of my speech- though if you catch me saying <Water> in fast speech, it's not [ˈwɔɾɚ] but somewhere between [ˈwʊ̞ɾɚ] and [ˈwo̙ɾɚ]. Note that neither [ʊ̞] or [o̙] occur in any other lexeme for me.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by J Reggie »

Yeah, I'm from Philly too, and I always found it interesting that we have [ˈwʊ̞ɾɚ] but no other similarly-pronounced words. It's just kind of its own thing.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Nortaneous »

How about "Washington"? It doesn't end up with FOOT, but in the MD-PA region it does sometimes take an inserted rhotic. And does anyone have THOUGHT in "water"? Usually it has PALM.
Znex wrote: 05 Oct 2018 13:00 You mean like [ˈθɜɹzdeɪ̯] instead of [ˈθɜɹzdi]? Huh, I know older folk around Sydney pronounce the days of the week with a weak [di] too actually.
Right. /θɚzdɨ/ is older; /θɚzdej/ is a spelling pronunciation.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by jimydog000 »

General Australian here.

Notes:
  • My /a/ is central and is possibly [ɐ].
  • Wiktionary lists Australian LOT as having the /ɒ/ vowel, but mine is definitely merged with /ɔ/ as in CLOTH.
  • I have the typical incomplete TRAP-BATH split wherein there is no split before /n/ or /m/, such as DANCE or PLANT; except in a few words like AUNT and CAN'T.
  • My POOL / COOL vowel is [ʊː].
  • My /ə/ at the beginning of words is /a/. When I was learning the IPA, I was confused when told "shwa is pronounced as in About".
KIT ɪ
DRESS e
TRAP æ
LOT ɔ
STRUT a
FOOT ʊ
BATH ɑː
CLOTH ɔ
NURSE ɜː
FLEECE ɪi
FACE æɪ
PALM ɑː
GOAT əʉ
GOOSE ʉː
PRICE ɑɪ
CHOICE ɔɪ
MOUTH aʉ
NEAR ɪː
SQUARE ɛː
START ɑː
NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT oː
HappY i
CURE jʉə
LettER a ~ ə
CommA a ~ ə
Last edited by jimydog000 on 13 Feb 2024 08:50, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Khemehekis »

Shemtov wrote: 05 Oct 2018 20:08 I'm not sure exactly of my vowels- I'm basically General American, but my /ə ʌ/ might be slightly untypical from GA, as I have a light Philly accent, and the stronger varieties of Philly Dialect do weird things to unstressed vowels, but for me, it's pretty much unoticible unless you're doing a narrow transcription of my speech- though if you catch me saying <Water> in fast speech, it's not [ˈwɔɾɚ] but somewhere between [ˈwʊ̞ɾɚ] and [ˈwo̙ɾɚ]. Note that neither [ʊ̞] or [o̙] occur in any other lexeme for me.
So you're from Philly? Do you have [a] in words like "after", "bath", "chance", "glass", etc. the way I do?
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Zekoslav »

Another foreign pronunciation of English [:D] :

KIT i̞
DRESS ɛ
TRAP a ~ æ
LOT ɔ
STRUT ɐ
FOOT ʊ (yes, for some reason, my FOOT vowel is more lax than my KIT vowel)
BATH ɑː
CLOTH ɔ
NURSE ɚː
FLEECE iː
FACE ei̯
PALM ɑː
GOAT ou̯
GOOSE uː
PRICE ai̯
CHOICE oi̯
MOUTH ɑu̯
NEAR iːɚ̯
SQUARE eːɚ̯
START ɑːɻ
NORTH/FORCE oːɚ̯
THOUGHT oː
HappY i
CURE jɚː
LettER ɚ
CommA ə

This is the result of learning British English in school, but never being able to force myself to speak non-rhoticly.
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Re: English Dialects

Post by Nortaneous »

Khemehekis wrote: 02 Jan 2019 07:55
Shemtov wrote: 05 Oct 2018 20:08 I'm not sure exactly of my vowels- I'm basically General American, but my /ə ʌ/ might be slightly untypical from GA, as I have a light Philly accent, and the stronger varieties of Philly Dialect do weird things to unstressed vowels, but for me, it's pretty much unoticible unless you're doing a narrow transcription of my speech- though if you catch me saying <Water> in fast speech, it's not [ˈwɔɾɚ] but somewhere between [ˈwʊ̞ɾɚ] and [ˈwo̙ɾɚ]. Note that neither [ʊ̞] or [o̙] occur in any other lexeme for me.
So you're from Philly? Do you have [a] in words like "after", "bath", "chance", "glass", etc. the way I do?
What, as in the TRAP-BATH split?

(There are some old dictionaries where the pronunciation guides seem to indicate the existence of the TRAP-BATH split in AmE, with slightly different conditioning than the British split (it applied to 'ant'), but it died out and for all I know was artificial in the first place.)

(Could the variance in the pronunciation of 'aunt' be a relic of the split? It can't be a spelling pronunciation; otherwise we'd expect THOUGHT instead of PALM.)
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