Re: Future English

>From: Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...>
>
>The merger of /O/ and /A/ in much of the Western US.
>The merger of /I/ and /E/ before nasals in much of the South.
>The merger of /w/ and /W/ for most Americans
>The loss of /h/ before /j/ for many Americans, leading to "Hugo" = "Yugo".
I haven't heard the last one much, but I've always assumed it happened.  The
merger of /O/ into /A/ is interesting because, although I do it, I don't
notice in other's speech whether they do or not.  This is very rare for me.

I was thinking about /I/ and /E/ before nasals, and it seems I have that
merger only partially.  "Pen" is /pIn/ for me, but the name of the letter is
/En/, the question word is /wEn/ (not /WEn/), the number is /tEn/ and so
forth.  In fact, other than "pin" and "pen", I can't think of a single
example of this merger in my speech.  Granted, I'm not from the south.  I
suppose this means that the merger doesn't exist at all for me and that I
just borrowed /pIn/ from a neighboring 'lect.  (i.e. It is a true
homophone.)

<shrug>

Athey

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