Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)

Tristan Mc Leay <conlang@...> wrote:
> ISTR some American dialects also have /wVt/ for 'what'.
I think that's _most_ American dialects.  Er, what vowel do your people
put in it?

> [I still don't believe anyone puts an /r/ in 'wash'. Not that I don't
> trust you [i.e. everyone who claims it exists], just that it seems so
> bizarre and unbelievable and plainly _wrong_.]
Maybe /A/ becoming [O] again, as apparently is happening in "wash", has
led people, perhaps by hypercorrection, to throw an [r] into the words,
as for many Americans [O] is normally only found before /r/ (the /O/ seen
in other American dialects, corresponding to RP /Q/ and /O:/, having
fallen together with /A/ in all other environments).

I suppose this would be moot if the dialects in question still retained the
original /A/-/O/ distinction.  (Speaking of which, for those that do retain
it, does "wash" have /A/ or /O/?  It's impossible to discover these things
 from the orthography--at least, if there are rules, I never learned them.)

	*Muke!
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