English Dialects

[Nortaneous]

Some words that might be worth testing if you have a splitter to hand might be:

TRAP: gaff, mastic, fantastic, asp-, gasket, jasper, castle (and castor, castigate), rather
BATH: asp, mass (and cast, caster, caste), alas, fasten
missing from the dictionary: bastion, crass

Also TRAP: ant (but no other ant- words), can't (but not cant)

Not at all. "Halve" is a PALM word, which Webster would have merged with FATHER. The vocalisation of the /l/ led to a diphthong, later assimilated into a long vowel.

Is it? It has TRAP in America.

[Salmoneus]

Some words that might be worth testing if you have a splitter to hand might be:

TRAP: gaff, mastic, fantastic, asp-, gasket, jasper, castle (and castor, castigate), rather
BATH: asp, mass (and cast, caster, caste), alas, fasten
missing from the dictionary: bastion, crass

So your TRAP ones are all TRAP in RP, except 'castle', and 'rather', which is, as I say, clearly an independent analogy. Oh, and "castor" (except for "Castor", which being a loanword takes TRAP. Wait, does that mean (given American BATH loanwords) that some US dialects say "castor" for Castor and "Castor" for castor?). Castigate I've heard either way, but I'd always have TRAP. I think your "castor" must just be an irregularity, given both the phonological context and the opposite vowel in 'caster', which should probably already have been homophonous by then.

"Castle" is an interesting one, since it indicates that your "BATH" split happened after the loss of /t/, and hence after the British one. However, it could be irregular, and the evidence of "fasten" points the opposite way.

On cast, caster, and fasten, there's agreement. "Asp" is the only -sp# word with TRAP in SSBE (though a couple are variable), so analogy is not surprising. -s# seems to be where the SSBE shift was most incomplete, because it's a total mess, which the US seems to have completed. [eg traditionally BATH Mass, but TRAP mass, though the former has analogised to the latter for most speakers now.]

Also TRAP: ant (but no other ant- words), can't (but not cant)

[/quote]
Whereas here, there's no similarity - we have BATH can't but TRAP cant. Most BATH -ant words followed a different route, originating in French borrowings (chant, grant, plant, aunt, vantage), while 'shan't' may be come from vocalised 'l'. I'm not sure if these words were PALM, but analogised to TRAP in the North, or if they were another category all along. In any case, this can't explain the irregular "can't" and "slant".

Is it? It has TRAP in America.

Yeah, not sure how that happened!

[Nortaneous]

So your TRAP ones are all TRAP in RP, except 'castle', and 'rather', which is, as I say, clearly an independent analogy. Oh, and "castor" (except for "Castor", which being a loanword takes TRAP. Wait, does that mean (given American BATH loanwords) that some US dialects say "castor" for Castor and "Castor" for castor?). Castigate I've heard either way, but I'd always have TRAP. I think your "castor" must just be an irregularity, given both the phonological context and the opposite vowel in 'caster', which should probably already have been homophonous by then.

"Castor" as in Castor and Pollux? The Latin lexical stratum takes TRAP in America, not PALM. But I don't know if the dialect of the dictionary would've been any different - Castor isn't in it.

(And loanwords in the dictionary that don't take TRAP take PALM, not BATH: guava, guano, lakh...)

On cast, caster, and fasten, there's agreement. "Asp" is the only -sp# word with TRAP in SSBE (though a couple are variable), so analogy is not surprising. -s# seems to be where the SSBE shift was most incomplete, because it's a total mess, which the US seems to have completed. [eg traditionally BATH Mass, but TRAP mass, though the former has analogised to the latter for most speakers now.]

TRAP: answer, basket, bass, cassava (with initial stress!), castrel (i.e. kestrel), dastard, fastidious, gas, gastric, gather, grand, hasp, hassock, hast, lasso, lather, mantel, mantis, pantaloon, all panth- words, pantry, passenger, passible, pastern, phantom, plant, plantain, plasm, plastic, ranch, rant, rascal, scant, shanty, tantalize, tantamount, tantrum, tassel, all trans- words


BATH: advance, advantage, ant, ask, ass, chance, chant, fast, flask, gasp, ghastly, glance, glass, graft, grant, grass, haft, lass, lath, mandarin (/ˌmandaˈri:n/?!), masque, Mass, mass, nasty, pant, pass, passage, Passover, passport, past, pastime, pastor, pasture, plaster, prance, raft, rafter, rasp, shan't, slant, staff, stanch, task, trance, vast

PALM: calf, calve, half, laugh, salve,
PALM: haunch, haunt, gaunt, gauntlet, jaunt, jaunty, launch, launder, taunt, vaunt (given as PALM or THOUGHT)
PALM: aunt
(In AmEng now, the first set takes TRAP and the second takes THOUGHT. "Aunt", of course, varies.)

Also:
/z/ in "basilisk" - presumably /s/ is a spelling pronunciation
THOUGHT in "falcon" - the spelling pronunciation hadn't caught on yet in the 1890s
either THOUGHT or GOAT in "groat" and "groats" (now always GOAT)
LOT in "halibut" and "scallop" (now TRAP, I think - spelling pronunciation, but wouldn't we expect THOUGHT? and TRAP in "shallop")
also LOT in "wallet", "wallop", "wallow", "walnut"
TRAP in "palmetto"
w + NORTH (i.e. THOUGHT + -r): all quart- words, vs. default LOT for qua- (quart- varies in AmEng)
START (i.e. PALM + -r): sarsparilla (always /sæs-/ now)
I've been pronouncing "talon" wrong all my life, apparently it has initial stress

Unstressed 'short' <a> is given as BATH, so you get alternations like /ˈgrætɪtu:d/ vs. /graˈtu:ɪtʌs/.

[Esneirra973]

Here are mine:

Code: Select all

KIT [ɪ]
DRESS [ɛ]
TRAP [æ]
LOT [ɑ]
STRUT [ə]
FOOT [ʊ]
BATH [æ]
CLOTH [ɑ]
NURSE [ɚ]
FLEECE [i]
FACE [ɛɪ̯]
PALM [ɑ]
THOUGHT [ɑ]
GOAT [ɔʊ̯]
GOOSE [uʊ̯]
PRICE [aɪ̯]
CHOICE [ɔɪ̯]
MOUTH [æʊ̯]
NEAR [iɚ]
SQUARE [ɛɚ]
START [ɑɚ]
NORTH [ɔɚ]
FORCE [ɔɚ]
CURE [jɔɚ ~ jɚ] - [jɔɚ] is mostly in careful speech. [jɚ] is used otherwise.
happY [i]
lettER [ɚ]
commA [ə]

My dialect also has lengthened vowels in front of voiced obstruents and nasals that are in coda position. For example, beat is pronounced [biʔ ~ bit̚], whereas bead is pronounced [biːɾ ~ biːɪ̯ɾ]. Sometimes, long [iː] and [uːʊ̯] can become the diphthongs [iːɪ̯] and [uːʊ̯]. That results in the following vowel inventory:

/i ɪ ʊ ə ɛ æ ɑ/
/ɛɪ̯ ɔɪ̯ aɪ̯ uʊ̯ ɔʊ̯ æʊ̯/
/iɚ ɛɚ ɔɚ ɑɚ ɚ/
/iː~iːɪ̯ ɪː ʊː əː ɛː æː ɑː/
/ɛːɪ̯ ɔːɪ̯ aːɪ̯ uːʊ̯ ɔːʊ̯ æːʊ̯/
/iːɚ ɛːɚ ɔːɚ ɑːɚ ɚː/

[sangi39]

Less on the lines of phonology, but I just wanted to share my favourite thing from up here in Yorkshire, which is the word "gizzit", a contraction of "give us it" where "us" means "(to) me"

[brblues]

Less on the lines of phonology, but I just wanted to share my favourite thing from up here in Yorkshire, which is the word "gizzit", a contraction of "give us it" where "us" means "(to) me"

Same in Scotland! The usual written form is "gies it". It can also be used for the original 1PL meaning too still I think, like when some hoodlums in Glasgow wanted to rob me of my trousers exclaiming "gies yer troosers man".

[Xonen]

Less on the lines of phonology, but I just wanted to share my favourite thing from up here in Yorkshire, which is the word "gizzit", a contraction of "give us it" where "us" means "(to) me"

Same in Scotland! The usual written form is "gies it". It can also be used for the original 1PL meaning too still I think, like when some hoodlums in Glasgow wanted to rob me of my trousers exclaiming "gies yer troosers man".

Dammit, Glasgow, that's no way to fight the stereotypes!

[Davush]

Less on the lines of phonology, but I just wanted to share my favourite thing from up here in Yorkshire, which is the word "gizzit", a contraction of "give us it" where "us" means "(to) me"

Same in Scotland! The usual written form is "gies it". It can also be used for the original 1PL meaning too still I think, like when some hoodlums in Glasgow wanted to rob me of my trousers exclaiming "gies yer troosers man".

I also have "giz" as the usual contraction of "give us" (for "give me") in Scouse.

Also RE vowels: "traditional" Scouse only has a distinction between /a a:/ with palm etc. being /pa:m/ with a front-ish /a:/ although this is often /A:/ now for many speakers.

[kanejam]

NZ English has 'gizzus' /ˈgɘzɘs/, as in 'gizzus a look at you', seemingly with 'us' suffixed twice. Note NZ English isn't big on using 'us' for 1SG outside of this expression.

[nxh]

(My idiolect of) Singaporean English:

KIT ɪ
DRESS æ
TRAP æ
LOT ɒ
STRUT a
FOOT ʊ
BATH a
CLOTH ɒ
NURSE ə
FLEECE i
FACE e
PALM a
THOUGHT ɒ
GOAT o
GOOSE u
PRICE aɪ
CHOICE ɒɪ
MOUTH au
NEAR jəː
SQUARE æː
START aː
NORTH ɒː
FORCE ɒː
CURE jɒː
HappY i
LettER əː
CommA ə

TL;DR I merge TRAP/DRESS, COT/CAUGHT and STRUT/BATH, and pretty much don't differentiate vowel length (also Singaporean English tends to not have a lot of diphthongs).

Giving an inventory of
/ɪ i u ʊ ə æ e a ɒ o/
/əː æː ɑː ɒː əː/
/aɪ ɒi au/

A few interesting things not really covered in this list:

1. Voicing of final consonants is often expressed by vowel length (and all final consonants become unvoiced), hence "bit" /bɪʔ/ vs "bid /bɪˑʔ/
2. In a lot of cases where the KIT/DRESS/TRAP vowel (and some cases for the CAUGHT/COT vowel) has been reduced to schwa in most other English dialects, SSE does not; hence the penultimate vowel of "university" and "universally" are not actually the same, and the /ɪ/ in "effect" goes even further and gets tensed to /i/, making "effect" and "affect" sound even more distinct than they would be otherwise.
3. Syllable-final /l/ tends to get vocalised into /ɤ/ or /w/, though this really depends on how fast i'm talking
4. Some vowels, like the first in "effect", are tensed where they would be lax in other varieties of English, for instance "egg" is /eˑk/, not /æˑk/; I'm not sure you can really find a predictable pattern behind this

[VaptuantaDoi]

Vowels:
iː ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ʉˑ
ɪː ​ ɪ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ʊ ʊː
ɛː ​ ɛ ​ ​ ​ əː ə ​ ​ ​ ɔ
æː æ ​ ​ ɐː ɐ

/æɪ̯ æʉ̯ ʊi̯ ɑɪ̯ o̟ʉ̯~oʏ̯/

-The length distinction on /æ/ is marginally phonemic:
/kæn/ “can aux.vb.” vs. /kæːn/ “can n. and vb.”
Thus I can fish is /ɑi̯ kæn fɪʃ/ vs. /ɑɪ̯ kæːn fɪʃ/
Generally it's short before voiceless consonants and long before voiced, excluding when unstressed or in a few words like lad.
-/ʉˑ/ (goose) isn’t as long as the other long vowels, probably because it doesn’t have a short component (although /iː/ is full length)
-/ʉˑ o̟ʉ̯/ have back allophones [ʊu̯ o̟u̯] before syllable-final /l/: pool is [pʰʊu̯ɫ] and thus very similar to Paul [pʰʊːɫ]

KIT /ɪ/
DRESS /ɛ/
TRAP /æ/
BAD /æː/
LOT /ɔ/
STRUT /ɐ/
FOOT /ʊ/
BATH /ɐː/
CLOTH /ɔ/
NURSE /əː/
FLEECE /iː/
FACE /æɪ̯/
PALM /ɐː/
THOUGHT /ʊː/
GOAT /o̟ʉ̯~oʏ̯/
GOOSE /ʉˑ/
PRICE /ɑɪ̯/
CHOICE /ʊi̯/
MOUTH /æʉ̯/
NEAR /ɪː/
SQUARE /ɛː/
START /ɐː/
NORTH /ʊː/
FORCE /ʊː/
CURE /jʊː/
HappY /iː/ (phonemically short [i​])
LettER /ə/ (could be argued as being an unstressed variant of /əː/)
CommA /ə/ (could be argued as being an unstressed variant of /əː/)

Minimal pairs:

Spoiler:

All long vowels:
bead, beard, bared, bad, booed, bird, bard, board /b i~ɪ~ɛ~æ~ʉ~ə~ɐ~ʊ ːd/[/i]
Front long vowels:
bead, beard, bared, bad /biːd bɪːd bɛːd bæːd/
Front short vowels:
sit, set, sat /sɪt sɛt sæt/
Central long vowels:
who’d heard hard /hʉːd həːd hɐːd/
Length distinction:
leered/lid /lɪ(ː)d/
port/put /pʊ(ː)t/
dared/dead /dɛ(ː)d/
along/furlong /(f)ə(ː)lɔŋ/ (also stress distinction)
can/can /kæ(ː)n/
cart/cut /kɐ(ː)t/

---

Consonants:
-The palato-alveolars /tʃ dʒ ʃ ʒ ɹ/ are actually rounded laminal retroflex [ʈ̻͡ʂ̻ʷ ɖ̻͡ʐ̻ʷ ʂ̻ʷ ʐ̻ʷ ɻ̻ʷ].
-/ɹ/ is a sort of tap after /t d/, while /t d/ are retracted: /tɹiː/ → [ʈ̻ɻ̺ʷɪi̯], /dɹʊː/ → [ɖ̻ɻ̺ʷʊː]
-Final /p t tʃ k/ are unreleased ejectives [p’̚ t’̚ ʈ̻͡ʂ̻ʷ’̚ k’̚]
-Intervocalic /t d/ are usually retained, but sometimes /t/ is voiced to [d] (never flapped)
-Intrusive /ɹ/ happend (China and → /ˈtʃɑɪ̯nəɹənd/, as well as linking /j/ or /w/ (see Eric → /siˈjɛɹɪk/, you are → /jʉˈwɐː/)
-Normal initial aspiration

p ​ b ​ ​ ​ ​t ​ d ​ ​ ​ ​tʃ ​ dʒ ​ ​ ​​ ​k ​ ​g
​ ​ ​ m ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​n ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ŋ
f ​ ​v ​ ​ ​ ​ ​θ ​ ð ​ ​ ​ʃ ​ ​ ​ ʒ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​h
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​​ ​​ s ​ z
​ ​ ​w​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​l ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ɹ ​ ​ ​​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​j

[Mecejide]

Each row is a separate vowel phoneme:
Kit ship sick bridge myth busy
Milk dress step neck edge shelf friend ready
Trap tap back badge scalp hand cancel bath staff brass ask dance sample calf
Lot stop sock dodge romp possible quality cloth cough broth cross long Boston palm psalm father bra spa lager thought taught sauce hawk jaw broad
Strut cup suck budge pulse trunk blood comma catalpa quota vodka
Foot put bush full good look wolf
Nurse hurt lurk urge burst jerk term cure tourist pure plural jury letter paper meter calendar stupor succor martyr figure
Fleece creep speak leave feel key people happy copy scampi taxi sortie committee hockey Chelsea
Face tape cake raid veil steak day
Goat soap joke home know so roll
Goose loop shoot tomb mute huge view
Price ripe write
Arrive high try buy
Choice adroit noise join toy royal
Mouth out house
Loud count crowd cow
Near beer sincere fear beard serum
Square care fair pear where scarce vary
Start sharp bark carve heart
Far farm
North for war short scorch born warm force four wore sport porch borne story poor
Ew ewe Tiw

[Mecejide]

The approximate transcriptions are, in order:
[
ɪ
ɛ
æ~eə̯
a
ɐ
ʊ
ɚ
i
ei̯
ou̯
u
ɜi̯
ai̯
oi̯
ɜu̯
au̯
iɚ̯
eɚ̯
ɜɚ̯
aɚ̯
oɚ̯
iu̯
]

[Arayaz]

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɑ
STRUT ɐ
FOOT ʊ̈ ɯ̽
LIP ɪ̈
BATH æ
CLOTH ɒ
NURSE ɚ
FLEECE i
FACE ej
PALM ɒ
THOUGHT ɒ
GOAT əw
GOOSE ʊ̈w
PRICE aj
CHOICE oj
MOUTH æw
NEAR iɚ̯
SQUARE eɚ̯
START aɚ̯
NORTH oɚ̯
FORCE oɚ̯
CURE jɚ or joɚ̯
HappY i
LettER ɚ
CommA ə

+lengthening before voiced stops
+nasalization before nasal consonants?

As for consonants, I think I stay close to the norm, except T-glottalization (t → ʔ in coda, unless it's preceded by another consonant or it's a CC(C) coda)

[_Just_A_Sketch]

Here's my best attempt at listing my vowels
KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
BAD/BATH æ:
LOT/THOUGHT/CLOTH ɑ (CLOTH might be ɑ: but idk)
STRUT ʌ
FOOT ɯ̽
NURSE ɝ
FLEECE i:
FACE eɪ
PALM ɑ:
GOAT oʊ ~ əʊ (free variation I think, əʊ seems to be a more recent development)
GOOSE ʉ:
PRICE aɪ̯
CHOICE oɪ̯
MOUTH aʊ̯
NEAR ɪɚ̯
SQUARE ɛɚ̯
START ɑɚ̯
NORTH/FORCE ɔɚ̯
CURE jɚ̯
HappY i
LettER ɚ
CommA ə

Vowels are nasalized before nasals.

[ʍ] has also been becoming more frequent for <wh>. This, along with [əʊ] seem to be an influence of Southern American English

[eldin raigmore]

In which English dialects, and/or at what times and/or places, were the terms
Northron, Southron, Eastron, Westron,
used instead of the terms
Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western?

….

I can remember my mother’s mother, and others of her generation in East Texas, using Southron (and IIANM Northron).

The English(?) traditional (folk?) song
“O Westron wind, when wilt thou blaw, the small rains down can rain?
“Christ, that I were in my lover’s arms, and he in my bed again!”
must have come from a place and time in which “Westron” was ambient.

I don’t recall ever hearing — or reading — Eastron, except when I said it or wrote it myself.

[Salmoneus]

A thing that's often helpful, if you're interested in an unusual word, is looking it up in a dictionary. There's a free one online at witktionary.org, although others are available also.

This would tell you that in theory the -ron words are found (archaically) in the USA and in Scotland, and probably derive from a Northumbrian form (so maybe Northumbria might also have these forms? I don't know). Although interestingly it's the standard forms that, according to Wikipedia, are bizarre deviations, since the PGmc is nurthro:nijaz, etc, and it's still -ron in Old High German, Norse, etc. I believe I've read elsewhere that this derivation, however, is contested, and that the standard forms may be from a different suffix (or combination of suffixes), or at least influenced by them, but I can't remember the details I'm afraid.

If you're going by ear, however, or from a written source that might have been going by ear, you may want to consider the possibility that a given instance of 'northron' (etc) might just be a metathesis of 'northern'.

For example, "northren", etc, are traditional pronounciations in (some?) Irish English, via metathesis, in much the same way that "modern" is pronounced as "modren". Most speakers are probably unaware that they are doing this, and it's not considered a different word or spelled differently.

[my layman's suspicion is that this is actually epenthesis followed by schwa reduction: modern and southern would presumably undergo epenthesis in the same manner as 'film' famously does - -lm epenthesis is considered its own thing in Irish, but should come from the same phonotactic restrictions in Irish. The r-coloured schwa in unstressed medial position could then be deleted. This would explain why the metathesis goes modern>modren, but also secretary>seckertary: the former has a coda -rC, in a position that would produce epenthesis in Irish, while the latter produces a medial -rC- that is perfectly legal without epenthesis in Irish (we could then imagine that the metathesis is either due to epenthesis breaking up an unstressed -Cr- cluster, or due to schwa being dropped and the vocalised *r being reinterpreted as an r-coloured and hence r-preceding schwa). But, I've not read about the details of this, so this could all be nonsense]

In any case, similar metatheses of the rare and awkward -rn coda could well occur in other dialects.

[elemtilas]

In which English dialects, and/or at what times and/or places, were the terms
Northron, Southron, Eastron, Westron,
used instead of the terms
Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western?

….

I can remember my mother’s mother, and others of her generation in East Texas, using Southron (and IIANM Northron).

The English(?) traditional (folk?) song
“O Westron wind, when wilt thou blaw, the small rains down can rain?
“Christ, that I were in my lover’s arms, and he in my bed again!”
must have come from a place and time in which “Westron” was ambient.

I don’t recall ever hearing — or reading — Eastron, except when I said it or wrote it myself.

1. Southron is definitely a Scots word and in that context has meant "English" for a very long time, in addition to being one of many variant spellings for "southern". I can't find where the other terms are used in Scots.

2. The curious weather term, "small rain", is found in Scots; but I believe is also found in English as well. From what I gather this little poem fragment was first known to be written in the 1500s but is believed to be older.

3. Southron is definitely in use in the U.S., especially throughout the South, and is attested certainly in the Civil War period. That your southern / Texan grandmother unironically uses the term indicates a strong continuity of tradition. The other term, northron, doesn't seem to have been as common. If she used that term as well, then you could well have been witness to an interesting tradition. Do you recall any other older relatives using those words?

4. I will quote a similarly wee bit of poetry from George Cable's 1899 "John March, Southerner":

"O! hide me from the Northron's eye!
Let me not hear his fawning voice,
I heard the Southland matron sigh
And saw the piteous tear that"

5. All of these words are also found as names, both personal and familial.

Given all that, I would say that the answer to your question is "broadly everywhere, and since time immemorial."

[eldin raigmore]

3. Southron is definitely in use in the U.S., especially throughout the South, and is attested certainly in the Civil War period. That your southern / Texan grandmother unironically uses the term indicates a strong continuity of tradition. The other term, northron, doesn't seem to have been as common. If she used that term as well, then you could well have been witness to an interesting tradition. Do you recall any other older relatives using those words?

Yes! And also several non-relatives of about that same age!

5. All of these words are also found as names, both personal and familial.

I did NOT know that!
So, we might have had a “Southron blot” instead of a “Southern blot” test for HIV?

Given all that, I would say that the answer to your question is "broadly everywhere, and since time immemorial."

Hmm! I’m a bit surprised by that!

[elemtilas]

I might also note here that -stern / -stron variation is not unheard of in Scots (and even English). Shrove Tuesday is also called Fastern Eve or Fastron Eve; and the wee door of a castle or town can be a postern or a postron gate. The heel of a horse is a pastern or pastron. Also cistern and sestron. I found a reference to hastren aits, early oats, but not hastron.