English Dialects

[Parlox]

So i've been working on figuring out what sounds occur in my dialect of English, and i'm wondering what phones can be found in the dialects other cbbers speak.

This is what i have got so far on my own dialect.
/i iː u ɯ ɯː/
/ɪ ɪː ʊ ɯ̽ ɯ̽ː/
/e eː o ɤ ɤː/
/ə əː/
/ɛ ɛː ʌ ʌː/
/æ/
/a aː ä ɑ ɑː/
I also have nasalized versions of every vowel here except [ä]. So i have 16 base vowels, and 10 long vowels, and 26 nasal vowels. For a total of 51 vowels.

I never realized how many vowels are in my dialect. I haven't looked to much into what consonants occur in my dialect, though a weird one it has is [ɻ͡ʁ].

[Creyeditor]

Could you relate them to Well's lexical sets? That would make comparison easier.

[Parlox]

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɑ or ä
STRUT ʌː
FOOT ɯ̽ː
BATH a
CLOTH ɑː
NURSE ə˞
FLEECE eiː
FACE ɛi
PALM ɑː or ä
THOUGHT ɑː
GOAT ɤɯ
GOOSE uː
PRICE ai
CHOICE oi
MOUTH aɤu
NEAR i
SQUARE ɛ˞
START ɑ˞ or ä˞
NORTH o˞
FORCE ɤ˞
CURE ɯ̽˞
HappY i
LettER ə˞
CommA ʌː

[Creyeditor]

Are there conditions for the ɑ~ä alternations in PALM, START and LOT?
Also I feel like there are some vowels missing, especially the long vowels. Where do they occur?

[Parlox]

Are there conditions for the ɑ~ä alternations in PALM, START and LOT?
Also I feel like there are some vowels missing, especially the long vowels. Where do they occur?

For your first question; no. I haven't found any conditions for it, so it appears to be random.
Yes there are vowels missing, i haven't given a large amount of example words. I'll make more in a few hours.

[Reyzadren]

/i i: u u:/
/e e: ə ə: o o:/
/ɔ ɔ:/
/a a:/

It's probably mixed with how I think I say things and/or what I can detect from other English words.

[Frislander]

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP a
LOT ɒ
STRUT ʊ
FOOT ʊ
BATH a
CLOTH ɒ
NURSE ɜː~œː
FLEECE iː
FACE eɪ~eː
PALM ɑː
THOUGHT ɔː
GOAT oʊ~oː
GOOSE uː
PRICE ai
CHOICE ɔi
MOUTH au
NEAR iə
SQUARE ɛː
START äː
NORTH ɔː
FORCE ɔː
CURE jʊː
HappY i
LettER ə
CommA ə

I also have uə in some words where the northeast of England has uə but most of the rest of England has ɔː, in particular "moor".

This gives the following inventory:

/iː ɪ ʊ ʊː uː/
/iə uə/
/eː~eɪ ə oː~oʊ/
/ɛ ɛː ɜː~œː ɔː/
/a ɑː ɒ/
/ai ɔi au/

[Nortaneous]

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɑ
STRUT ʌ
FOOT ʊ
BATH æ
CLOTH ɔə
NURSE ɚ
FLEECE ij
FACE ej
PALM ɑ
THOUGHT ɔə
GOAT əw
GOOSE ʉw
PRICE aj/əj
CHOICE oj
MOUTH æw
NEAR ir
SQUARE er
START ɔr
NORTH or
FORCE or
CURE jor/jɚ
HappY ɨ(j)
LettER ɚ
CommA ə

There are eight stressed vowels, which may as well be written /æ ɑ e ə o i ɚ u/, and eleven diphthongs /aj ej oj ij ar er or ir æw əw uw/, which may as well be considered VC sequences. Open syllables are strongly dispreferred. /ɨ/ excretes coda -j when it would otherwise appear in an open syllable or at the end of a morpheme -- I think that's right.

The only vowels that can end a syllable are /ɑ o ɚ ə/.

[sangi39]

Mine's basically the same as Frislander's, but I have /jɜː/ in CURE and I don't have /uə/ in words like "moor". How I handle the STRUT set depends on context, sometimes being distinct from the FOOT set, sometimes there's no split at all. That gives me:

/iː ɪ ʊ uː/
/iə uə/ with the latter only in words with "-er"
/eː~eɪ ə oː~oʊ/
/ɛ ɛ: (ʌ) ɜː ɔː/
/æ ɑː ɒ/
/ai ɔi au/

With a register dependent FOOT-STRUT split.

[KaiTheHomoSapien]

Alright, I'm not too great at phonology, especially when it comes to vowels, but I'll try:

KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ä
STRUT ʌ
FOOT ʊ
BATH æ
CLOTH ä
NURSE ə˞
FLEECE i
FACE ei
PALM ɑ (slightly different vowel from thought/lot/cloth. I also pronounce the /l/)
THOUGHT ä
GOAT oʊ
GOOSE ʉ (approximately. I pronounce it very fronted and mostly unrounded, typical of California)
PRICE ʌɪ (I have so-called "Canadian raising". I pronounce this as /prʌɪs/ but "prize" as /praɪz/. My own name is /kaɪ/, but then I say /kʌɪt/ "kite")
CHOICE ɔɪ
MOUTH aʊ
NEAR i
SQUARE ɛɚ
START ɑ
NORTH ɔ
FORCE ɔ (I don't hear any difference in the way I say the vowels in "north" and "force". This is the first I'm hearing that anyone pronounces them differently!)
CURE jʊ
HappY i
LettER ɚ
CommA ʌ (I seem to pronounce many final schwas more like /ʌ/)

[alynnidalar]

Don't forget that Wells Lexical Sets doesn't reflect all splits in English--it doesn't have Canadian Raising, for example. (e.g. rider vs. writer)

[Salmoneus]

I'm not sure this is particularly meaningful. "Phones", particularly vowel phones, are not absolute, objective things; these symbols are just guides to locations in a continuous vowel space; everyone will have slightly different phones. So it doesn't really make sense to talk about what phones are 'possible' or 'occur' in English as a whole.

It certainly doesn't make sense to do that while using phoneme slashes! My /Q/ may be nothing like your /Q/!


That said, if we're treating this as Yet Another English Dialect Thread...

Phonemically?
KIT ɪ
DRESS ɛ
TRAP æ
LOT ɒ
CLOTH ɒ
STRUT ʌ
FOOT ʊ
LettER ə
CommA ə

FLEECE iː
HappY iː
NEAR ɪː / ɪə
SQUARE ɛː / ɛə
BATH ɑː
PALM ɑː
START ɑː
THOUGHT ɔː
NORTH ɔː
FORCE ɔː
CURE ʊː / CURE ʊə
GOOSE uː
NURSE ɜː

FACE eɪ
GOAT oʊ
PRICE aɪ
CHOICE ɔɪ
MOUTH aʊ

"TYRE": aɪə / a
"TOWER": aʊə (/ a sometimes?)

In addition, I have something I don't understand in GOAL (also 'wholly').


So in other words: basic standard english english.
------------

Phonetically? I guess a few things are worth noting. Obviously my STRUT is centralised and my DRESS is raised, like everyone's. My monophthongised TYRE is backed.

More importantly, I have few if any genuine rounded vowels. FOOT is probably consistently slightly rounded; MOUTH always has a rounded second element; GOOSE and the second element of GOAT may have slight rounding, or at least they have some lip gesture that we can call 'rounding' even though it probably isn't real rounding. And NURSE likewise has mild "rounding" of some sort.

Otherwise, however, "rounded vowels" for me are unrounded, but sulcalised; the sulcalisation is strongest with LOT, to the point of sometimes almost being something weird like retracted tongue root or some really far back coarticulation of some sort.


So again: basic standard English.

[Creyeditor]

Wasn't there someone using the Vowel Hunter and Praat for phonetic measurements of their vowels? Sal, would you think that such a comparison would be more meaningful?

[esoanem]

I'm fairly boring, essentially standard modern RP so am pretty close to the charts here.

KIT [ɪ̈]
DRESS [ɛ̝]
TRAP [æ̞]
LOT [ɔ̞]
STRUT [ɐ]
FOOT [ʊ̈]
BATH [ɑ̘ː]
CLOTH [ɔ̞]
NURSE [ɜ̝ː]
FLEECE [ïː]
FACE [e̞ɪ̯̈]
PALM [ɑ̘ː]
THOUGHT [ɔ̝ː]
GOAT [əʊ̯]
GOOSE [ʉ̙ː]
PRICE [a̙ɪ̯̈]
CHOICE [ɔ̝ɪ̯̈]
MOUTH [ɑ̘ʊ̞̯]
NEAR [ɪɘ̘̯]
SQUARE [ɛː]
START [ɑ̘ː]
NORTH [ɔ̝ː]
FORCE [ɔ̝ː]
CURE [jʊə̯]
happY [ïː]
lettER [ə]
commA [ə]


I have a couple of slightly archaic features (for instance I don't yod-drop after /l/ so have /ljʊə/ for LURE)

[Salmoneus]

Wasn't there someone using the Vowel Hunter and Praat for phonetic measurements of their vowels? Sal, would you think that such a comparison would be more meaningful?

My issue wasn't with the methodology - although of course objective measurements would help - but with the underlying question. Parlox said they wanted to know "what phones can be found in in the dialects [people] speak".

My problem with this is that on the face of it, the answer to this would be a chart of vowel space marking all the phones that can be found in the dialects we speak. And that would be pretty meaningless - because if you add up all the vowels in all the dialects of english, and then account for reasonable allophony and free variation, you basically use up the whole of the vowel space, and while a few little unused gaps might appear, I don't think their location would actually be meaningful.

Reading it again, maybe that's not Parlox's intent - maybe they just want to do pairwise comparisons between certain dialects. But that's how it read to me taken literally.

[Imralu]

FLEECE [ɪi̯]
HappY [ɪ̆i̯] (not really convinced this is anything but a stress distinction)

KIT: [ɪ]
NEAR - before consonant: [ɪː], finally: [ɪɐ̯], before a vowel [ɪːɹ]

DRESS: [ɛ̝]
SQUARE: [ɛ̝ː], before a vowel [ɛ̝ːɹ]

LAD: [æ] (split of TRAP, containing the word "trap" itself)
BAD: [æː] (split of TRAP, only distinguishable before some consonants)

STRUT: [ä]
BATH/PALM/START: [äː], before a vowelː [äːɹ]

LOT/CLOTH: [ɔ]
GONE: [ɔː] (marginal)

FOOT: [ʊ] (primarily distinguished from THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE by length)
THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE: [oː], before a vowel [oːɹ]

GOOSE: [ʉː]
CURE: not present - splits to merge with THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE (as in "poor", "pour"), the bisyllabic sequence GOOSE+lettER/commA (as in "cure", "tour"), or simply GOOSE (as in "Europe").

LettER/commA: [ə], word finally [ɐ], before a vowel [əɹ]
NURSE: [ɘ̹ː], before a vowel [ɘ̹ːɹ]

FACE: [æɪ̯]
PRICE: [ɑe̯]
CHOICE: [oɪ̯]
GOAT: [ɐʉ̯], before /l/ in same morpheme becomes something like [ʌɯ̯]
MOUTH [æo̯], before /l/ in the same morpheme, might actually merge with BAD?

[kiwikami]

Reasonably GA, though I distinguish all of merry-Mary-marry courtesy of my New Yorker mother. (Actually, I always found that merger interesting - where do y'all stand on it?).

KIT [ɪ]
DRESS/MERRY [ɛ]
TRAP/BATH/MARRY [æ]
LOT [ɔ/ɑ]*
COT [ɑ]
STRUT [ʌ]
FOOT [ʊ]
CLOTH/CAUGHT [ɔ]
NURSE/HURRY/FURRY [ɝ]
FLEECE [i]
FACE [eɪ]
MARY [e:]**
PALM [ɑ]
THOUGHT [ɔː]
GOAT [əʊ]
GOOSE [u]
PRICE [aɪ]
CHOICE [ɔɪ]
MOUTH [ɑʊ]
MIRROR/NEARER [ɪɹ]
SQUARE [ɛɹ]
START [ɑɹ]***
NORTH/FORCE [oɹ]
CURE [jɝ]
happY [i]
lettER [ɝ]
commA [ə]

* At some point as a kid, I decided that since "lot" (a plot of land) and "lot" (a large quantity of something) meant different things, they were probably pronounced differently. I'm uncertain when, why, or how, but I have ended up with [lɔt] for the former and [lɑt] for the latter, though they should be homophonous. I have always been one to mispronounce things I had only ever seen written, but since I nearly never said those two words in the same conversation, and most of the people I interacted with had the cot/caught merger anyway, it went undetected until an undergraduate linguistics class where it came up.
** My [eɪ]s are distinctly monopthongal but lengthened before [ɹ]; merry-Mary-marry is predominantly a height distinction.
***I also have occasional prevocalic [ɒɹ] in words other than the GA-usual borrow/sorry/sorrow/tomorrow, including "horrible" and "quarrel" (which I more typically pronounce as rhyming with "squirrel"); again, thank you mother dearest.

[Egerius]

This screams “south of England”, but I am not a native speaker of English.
Actually, I'm intrigued to ask: Where would you put me on the map?

I'll post it anyway, because why not:

KIT [ɪ]
DRESS [ɛ]
TRAP [æ ~ a]
BATH [ɑː]
LOT/CLOTH [ɒ ~ ɔ]
STRUT [ʌ ~ ɐ]
FOOT [ʊ]
commA/lettER [ə]
NEAR [ɪː ~ ɪə]
SQUARE [ɛː ~ ɛə]
PALM/START [ɑː]
NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT [ɔː ~ oː]
NURSE [əː ~ ɐː]
CURE [ʊː ~ ʊə]
PRICE [ɑɪ̯]
FACE [ɛɪ̯ ~ æɪ̯]
FLEECE [ɪi̯ ~ ɨi̯]
happY [ɪ ~ ɪi̯]
CHOICE [ɔɪ̯ ~ oɪ̯]
MOUTH [æʊ̯ ~ æə]
GOAT [əʊ̯ ~ ɞʉ̯ ~ ɐʊ̯]
GOOSE [ʊu̯ ~ ʊʉ̯]

The happY-vowel and the (former) centering diphthongs change depending on their position (being realised as a diphthong word-finally).

And for singing (yes, I do sing occasionally, I use the FDR/Katherine Hepburn-style Transatlantic accent).

You may roast me now.

[Salmoneus]

This screams “south of England”, but I am not a native speaker of English.
Actually, I'm intrigued to ask: Where would you put me on the map?

I'll post it anyway, because why not:

KIT [ɪ]
DRESS [ɛ]
TRAP [æ ~ a]
BATH [ɑː]
LOT/CLOTH [ɒ ~ ɔ]
STRUT [ʌ ~ ɐ]
FOOT [ʊ]
commA/lettER [ə]
NEAR [ɪː ~ ɪə]
SQUARE [ɛː ~ ɛə]
PALM/START [ɑː]
NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT [ɔː ~ oː]
NURSE [əː ~ ɐː]
CURE [ʊː ~ ʊə]
PRICE [ɑɪ̯]
FACE [ɛɪ̯ ~ æɪ̯]
FLEECE [ɪi̯ ~ ɨi̯]
happY [ɪ ~ ɪi̯]
CHOICE [ɔɪ̯ ~ oɪ̯]
MOUTH [æʊ̯ ~ æə]
GOAT [əʊ̯ ~ ɞʉ̯ ~ ɐʊ̯]
GOOSE [ʊu̯ ~ ʊʉ̯]

The happY-vowel and the (former) centering diphthongs change depending on their position (being realised as a diphthong word-finally).

And for singing (yes, I do sing occasionally, I use the FDR/Katherine Hepburn-style Transatlantic accent).

You may roast me now.

I would interpret this as "European". In that it's a foreign speaker attempting to emulate a British English standard reasonably well, which is usually associated (at least around here) with Europeans.

Things that stand out as non-native:
TRAP /a/ - by itself, might suggest, say, Irish?
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...
STRUT /@/ - non-native, I think? Other than whatever it is Americans are doing.
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.
HAPPY /I/ - see lot/cloth. Happy-tensing is dying out completely now. It could, I suppose, be the sign of some regional dialect breaking through an SSBE strata, but mostly I'm going to interpret that as being European.
FACE /{I/ - to me, that sounds like PRICE, not FACE. Now, this sort of realisation of FACE actually isn't uncommon in British regional dialects, but it's not something you'd expect to find in what otherwise looks broadly SSBE.
PRICE /AI/ - I'm not sure how much this would stick out in speech, but it sticks out on the page. It reminds me of a tendency in several dialects to back that vowel, and even to round it - most famously in the "moy Zomerrzet zoyderrr" accents...


Anyway, chances are I wouldn't immediately think "this person is non-native!", but I would probably after a while be a bit bothered that there was something odd in your accent that would make me think you were from Europe.

[Imralu]

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.

LOT/CLOTH: [ɔ]
GONE: [ɔː] (marginal)

THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE: [oː], before a vowel [oːɹ]