Re: YAEPT:Re: Phonological musings (was: Announcement: New auxlang "Choton")

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> > Sorry, but no dialect I'm aware of has [we@] for 'were'.  'where', yes,
> > but not 'were'.  'Were' is [w3:], IME
>
> I've never denied the fact I speak a xenolect of English, different
> from any English ever spoken by a native speaker. If there's no
> modern dialect that pronounces "were" as we were taught, that
> isn't necessarily surprising, since that pronunciation is based on
> more-or-less obsolete forms of prescriptionist RP. Even if "were"
> never was natively pronounced as [we@], some prescriptionist may have
> concluded it _should_ be.
In any case, there is direct evidence in the form of Bilbo's poem:

		I sit beside the fire and think
		of all that I have seen,
		of meadow-flowers and butterflies
		in summers that have been;

		Of yellow leaves and gossamer
		in autumns that there were,
		with morning mist and silver sun
		and wind upon my hair.

The rhyme seen/been ([sin]/[bin]), as well as the other rhymes in
the poem, shows that were/hair was also a rhyme for Tolkien, and
since "hair" is [he@], presumably "were" was [we@] for him.

IIRC there is also a recording of JRRT reading this poem, which
should be definiitive.

--
John Cowan
        jcowan@reutershealth.com
                I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin

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