Re: USAGE: No rants! (USAGE: di"f"thong)

On 31/05/06, Larry Sulky <larrysulky@...> wrote:
> On 5/30/06, Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
> ---SNIP---
> > In spite of the fact that non-Anzacs can't hear the difference between
> > Kiwi and Aussie accents (in spite of the fact that it's really
> > obvious), for the purposes of developing an orthography, they are
> > different.
>
> Woah! To my ear they are very different. In fact, I would put the New
> Zealander accent midway between Australian and my own
> American/Canadian accent.
Oh my, an American/Canadian who can hear the difference! :) Though I
have heard others say that the Kiwi accent is more similar to American
than Australian---I suspect this is mostly to do with the respective
qualities of /I/ and /U/. But the qualities of most other vowels, I
thought the Australian'd be closer.

On 31/05/06, Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...> wrote:
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>
> Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
>
> > On 31/05/06, Paul Roser <pkroser@...> wrote:
> > ...
> >> Even making English spelling more phonemic would require picking one
> >> dialect
> >> over another - and which do we choose? Standard American? RP? Scots?
> >> ANZAC?
> >> Canadian? Caribbean? South Asian? Shanghai/Hong Kong?
> >
> > In spite of the fact that non-Anzacs can't hear the difference between
> > Kiwi and Aussie accents (in spite of the fact that it's really
> > obvious), for the purposes of developing an orthography, they are
> > different.
>
> Really? I would have thought the differences would be pretty obvious.
I'm told they aren't---though I ken hear thim plainly. Well, once you
come across a word thet's pronounced defferently. Sometimes et does
take a while, end thin whin you've heard et, you don't understend thim
because you're not runneng en Kiwi mode.

> You can do a pretty good parody of a Kiwi accent simply by turning most
> of the vowels into the vowels into schwas,
Compared to an Aussie accent, you mid-centralise /I/ and /U/, you
raise the short front vowels, and you pronounced /e:/ as [I@]. For
best results, also increase the diphthongisation of /i:/ to more like
[@i] rather than the Aussie [Ii]. For even better results, remember to
mispronounce "plant" and "dance" and "castle" as "plarnt" and "darnce"
and "carstle" --- though some Aussies do the latter anyway. (Also, you
can't pronounce H as "haitch", it's gotta be "aitch". Silly Kiwis. [I
personally find "aitch" (H) difficulty to distinguish from "ai" (A) in
connected, potentially ambiguous, contexts, so I hate it when people
say the letter "properly".]) Most importantly you must pronounce "six"
in such a way that Australians think it sounds like "sex" --- though I
suspect we'd think that of most other English speakers anyway, but the
differences are greater so we notice them less.

Kiwis and Victorians (like me) also tend to merge /&/ and /e/
prelaterally, so "shall" and "shell" or "celery" and "salary" are
homophones.

>and taking any diphthongs,
> turning most of them into vowels, and then shortening, fronting and
> raising. Stress isn't as strong--to my ear--in NZ English as it is in
> Aus. English, which, combined with longer dipthongs and vowels, gives
> Australian English its distinctive sound.
I've heard there is some tendency in New Zealand, under the influence
of Maori, to move from a stress-timed speech to a more syllable-timed
one. I don't really notice this as a difference though; as I say, most
of the distinction is in the quality of the short front vowels.

On 31/05/06, Dana Nutter <sasxsek@...> wrote:
>
> FWIW:  When I was in Oz, I was constantly being mistaken for Canadian
> though I've never been anywhere near Canada in my life.
Probably just trying to be polite :) :P ... I certainly can't
distinguish Canadian and similar American accents.

--
Tristan.