Re: CHAT: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

At 4:26 pm -0400 7/4/01, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>David Peterson wrote:
[snip]

>>If [A] is the sound I think it is, it exists in every American dipthong
>>with
>>an "a" sound in it.  (i.e.: kite, light, how, now)
[snip]
>I'm pretty sure that in most varieties of English all those diphthongs begin
>in [a].
Are you?  As a native speaker of English for about 60 years, I am far from
sure.

I was brought up pronouncing /aw/ as [Ew] - this is still common in
southern dialects in England.

Also the traditional dialect of Sussex & many other southern areas have
[Oj] for /aj/ (thus 'boy' and 'buy' become homophones); our area of west
Sussex was already being affected by urban London, and we did distinguish
/Oj/ from /aj/, pronouncing the latter more or less as [aj].

I had to learn to modify [Ew] and now pronounce /aw/ as [&w] (i.e. SAMPA
[{w]).  That seems to be the way most educated speakers pronounce it in
southern England and, I believe, that pronunciation is common across the
pond.

In London itself, /aw/ is either [A:] or [&:] in Cockney, according to
whether one lives north or south of the Thames (I always forget which is
which - And will no doubt enlighten me :).  In some Midland dialects IIRC
the diphthong is [@w], and that is generally the way it's pronounced in the
English of Wales.

Here in Surrey, /aj/ seems to be more like [Qj]; certainly in London it
tends this way - I suspect to compensate for tendency of Londoners to
pronounce /ej/ as [Ej] or even [&j].  In some northern dialects the [j] has
virtually disappeared and we have [A:]; I'm fairly sure that pronunciation
is also known over the pond. In some Midland dialects IIRC the diphthong is
[@j], and that is generally the way it's pronounced in the English of
Wales.

The English of southern Africa, Australia & New Zealand I think treat these
diphthongs differently.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
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