CHAT: Eng regionalisms (was: German and English)
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, October 8, 2003, 17:37 |
|---|
On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, at 05:52 , Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> At 07:02 29.9.2003, Ray Brown wrote:
>>
[snip]
>> Yes indeed. But in the colloquial speech of north Surrey, where I now
>> live, the sound is entirely unrounded and centralized [@1] ; to those
>> unused to it, "coat" sounds distinctly like "kite"!
>
> It just occurred to me that I read somewhere that
> some speakers have [AM] for /AU/ as in _mouth_.
> Together with [@i\] for /oU/ that means that
> three English diphthongs are now very close in
> pronunciation, which will make EngEng even harder
> for us poor furriners.
It's not only "poor furriners" that have problems with regional varieties
of Brit English; we natives also have problems.
After 22 years in South Wales, I had problems with some local
pronunciations and actually did once misunderstand "coat" as "kite". We
southerners find some regional accents difficult to follow, especially in
the N.E. England and the Scottish border country. During the "Troubles"
there were not infrequently reports from Northern Ireland and one would
dearly have liked subtitles given when some of the locals were interviewed.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work)
===============================================
Replies