Re: NATLANGS: Difthongization across Europa

David Peterson wrote:
>I wonder if the pre-GVS change of &: A: > E: O: in English went
>thru this stage too, seeing that they're spelled <ea oa>?
> >>
>
>The former is happening/happens in my English before nasals:
>
>bag = [b&:g]
>bad = [b&:d]
>ban = [bean]
It's surprising that, for you, only nasals are involved. And maybe only
/n/??

I find this rather curious-- the raising of low vowels before final voiced
stops, /r/ and /n/ (not sure about /-z/) was studied in NY/Phila speech by
Labov in the 60s or maybe 70s. When I lived in NYC 1960-64 I sure heard it--
bed and bad, sure and shore, bag and beg, can and Ken etc. were very nearly
rhymes!! (IIRC it started before dentals, then spread. We've discussed this
before, and there's a website about it somewhere.....).

What's curious is, Conventional Wisdom has many modern American sound
changes starting in California, then spreading to the rest of the country--
mostly via the younger generation. Because of pop music, Hollywood stars
etc?? Who knows.  If you're any example, this is a case of East >> West. How
about your contemporaries, or teen-agers?
>
>I've noticed a similar thing with the back vowels, but haven't
>subjected them to experimentation the way I did with the front
>vowels:
>
>bog = [bA:g]
>bod = [bA:d]
>bomb = [bO@m]
Sounds like maybe a DJP quirk :-))) How about Tom, CD-Rom? (not too many
exs. of /CAm/) YAEPT ALERT!! How about "balm"? I have [A:] in all these, and
pronounce the /l/ in balm.

>For an example of the front vowels, at least, listen to any song
>by Snoop Dogg where he says "damn" (comes out sounding
>like "day-am").  I'm not aware of it having been reported for
>English outside of southern California, but no one seems to be
>looking.
>
That's just the plain old Southern drawl, probably in most AAVE too. Making
it 2 syllables is just for emphasis. Same with [Si:.It].  Again, I heard
plenty of both in Army days (56-59) stationed in Ga. and SC (ugh)-- we
Yankees found these quite quaint but effective nonetheless, and it turned
out they were also widely used by most GIs old and young everywhere.... and
probably still are.

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