Re: Are/our/hour

At 4:28 pm -0600 5/3/00, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>James Campbell wrote:
>
>> On the subject of are/our/hour:
>>
>> The angle from Dorset almost-RP-speakers would be:
>> (/&/ = schwa)
>>                           are      our       hour
>>
>> In careful speech/        /a:(r)/  /aU&(r)/  /aU&(r)/
>> word stressed
>>
>> In normal conversation    /a:(r)/  /a:(r)/   /aU&(r)/
>>
>> There is crossover, but maybe not in the same way as for American dialects?
From a Sussex speaker 'our' and 'air' are homophones, both being /E:/.
This is what I brought up with and what my mother used throughout her life.
I had to learn other habits when I went to university, and subsequently
lived in the Midlands & then south Wales before returning almost home.

The normal conversation mapping in west Sussex was and AFAIK still is:
                          /A:/     /E:/      /EU@/

Earlier this century, local Sussex dialects were rhotic, but this had
virtually disappeared in the west when I was young, but IIRC still
persisted in the more rural east.  I suspect arrhoticism has pervaded most
parts of the county now, if not all of it.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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