Re: The fourteen vowels of English?

Paul Bennett wrote:

> I remember reading somewhere that English has 14 vowels (presumably
> including diphthongs), but that every dialect collapses at least two of
> them together.
>
> Well, I decided to measure my own lect, and got some surprising
> results. I
> have at least 17 vowels that I can think of, all of which can appear
> between /h/ and /d/...
>
> /hid/ heed
> /hId/ hid
> /hed/ head
> /hEd/ haired
> /had/ had
> /hAd/ hard
> /hVd/ HUD - a bit of a cheat, since it's a acronym
> /hOd/ hoard (or whored)
> /h@U)d/ hoed (as in the garden tool)
> /hUd/ hood
> /hud/ who'd
> /h3d/ heard
> /hI@)d/ *heared (also seen in "beard")
> /hAj)d/ hide
> /hAj@))d/ hired
> /hej)d/ heyed (past of "to exclaim 'hey'")
> /hOj)d/ *hoyed (putative past of "to exclaim 'hoy'", which is a real
> exclamation, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it verbed).
>
> There may well be some missing /:/s in there, as I'm pretty bad at
> detecting vowel length in my own speech. The /Aj)/s might actually be
> /Vj)/ in my lect, or something in between.
>
I have all of those vowels.  I can think of several extra hypothetical
ones, heard mainly in the speech of older speakers: [U@]'houred' and
[O@]'hoored'(both [O:] in my speech).  And you missed out [Au]'howed',
and [Au@]'houred', but differently. In other words, some lects have up
to 21 vowels, dipthongs, and tripthongs.

If you remove the 'rhotic' ones(that are not in rhotic dialects), it
gets significantly smaller.

(given my 'lect's values)
/hi:d/ heed
/hId/ hid
/hEd/ head
/h&d/ had
/hA:d/ haad(not a real word, I know)
/hVd/ HUD
/h@U)d/ hoed
/hUd/  hood
/hud/ who'd
/hAj)d/ hide
/hej)d/ heyed
/hOj)d/ hoyed
/hAud/ howed

Only thirteen, which is interesting.