Re: Diphthongs

Quoting Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>:

> On Saturday, October 6, 2001, at 12:04 , Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> > Quoting Adam Walker <dreamertwo@...>:
> >> Well, in my Texas English it *is* one sound.  The monophthongization
> >> of /aj/ is a beauteous thing. *g*
> >
> > That's also a general Southern phenomenon, too.
>
> If only I had a Texan accent...*no one* believes me when I say I was
> born and (partly) raised in Houston.  Though I guess currently I'm
> imitating a New Yorker imitating a Californian.
My relatives from out of state tell me that I don't really
sound like a Texan, but that my parents do.  That's not really
surprising:  I say "forest" [fOr@st], not [fAr@st] as my mom
does;  I pronounce final consonant clusters like "pt" in "swept",
not like my dad's [swEp].  I also avoid similes like the plague:
no "tight as a tick" (whatever that means) for me.

On the other hand, I clearly do say "y'all" all the time, and
have a merger of /I/ and /E/ (> /I/) before nondorsal nasals,
though I don't diphthongize /I/ to [I@] like some Texans/Southerners
do.

> > BTW, how many Texans do we have on this list?  The recent thread
> > on Texas weirdness made me realize we have about have a dozen
> > (you, me, Cian, Dan, others?).
> >
> <raising hand>  And also one of the three from SBISD, as you pointed
> out. Strangeness.  I wish I'd been there for more than 3 years.  <sigh>  At
> least, I sure don't know of any other conlangers from Seoul Foreign
> School.  ..
Right.  Sorry I forgot about you.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III

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