Re: CHAT: Eng regionalisms (was: German and English)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Brown" <ray.brown@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 6:38 PM
Subject: CHAT: Eng regionalisms (was: German and English)


> 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.


Ah, the NE Accent.  My step0Dad comes from there.  He told me a joke his Dad
apparently once told him -

A Russian ship sails into Newcastle -
Bloke calls: What's the name of your ship?
A Sailor calls: Anna!
Bloke: [a na: jE na: but_? a: div@ na:]
            =I know you know, but I don't know

Not very funny, perhaps, but a good illustration.  If someone showed me
[AM], I(being a southerner) would assume they meant [Al], or something
similar.