Re: onomatopeyics in conlangs

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Eric Christopherson wrote:
> > In English, same spelling, but pronounced /b&N/
>
> In which dialect?  In my dialect /&N/ isn't even permissible, <ang> is
> always pronounced /eN/, so bang = /beN/.
Ah, quite right. I live in southern Wisconsin. The vowel seems to me
midway between /&/ and /e/. This vowel is also used before g, as in
bag. I was listening to a radio station just south of the WI-IL border
and the DJ on there said he could tell a caller was from WI because
she pronounced a before g like how I described above instead of as
/&/, which presumably is how they pronounce it in Illinois. I never
noticed that before. Also, in this area we seem to pronounce "long I"
as [^i] before unvoiced consonants and [ai] elsewhere (although there
are some exceptions), and also "ar" is pronounced [^r] before unvoiced
consonants and [ar] elsewhere.