Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

E. Notagain scripsit:

> Tiovaqnaki Tels Joe:
>
> >Well, I'm not a teenager, and never grew up in a ghetto, nor even a
> >pseudo-ghetto, but I've noticed this in my own speech occasionally.  And my
> >father does it too sometimes.  It's never "ask" = /&ks/, but "asked" =
> >/&akst/ does happen.  The /t/ has to be conditioning this one.  I've also
> >noticed that I sometimes add a "t" to words ending in "f", like /klIft/ for
> >"cliff".  It sounds normal, I only noticed it when one of these Californios
> >pointed it out to me.
(I seem to have missed the original posting.)

Note that /&ks/ is the historically original form < Old English 'acsian'.
"Ask" and "aks" have been playing musical chairs throughout the history
of English, and it's not surprising that many dialects have stabilized
on the latter.

--
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
"It's the old, old story. Droid meets droid. Droid becomes chameleon.
Droid loses chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back
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