Re: OT: English and front rounded vowels

On 12/10/07, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...> wrote:

> In South Dakota, everyone used [jA] "yah"? a lot, to the dismay of our
> teachers. Hold-over no doubt from the plentiful German/Scandanavian
> heritage. (I think my sister and I still use it, probably picked it up from
> peers-- still, one gd.father was Swiss-German, but I don't recall my mother
> ~aunts using it, though they probably did.)
>
Oddly enough, I've ended up with "ya" in my speech and Monterey isn't
reknown for a large German/Scandanavian population. Of course, it
could be related to the emerging "California accent", where /&/ often
ends up something like /a/ (and I have noticed features of the accent
in my speech if I'm being informal (I take care not to let it slip at
work, very much).

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