Search results for 'tag:American English tag:Diphthongs' matching tags 'American English' and 'Diphthongs'

Re: fair-haired

Pter — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:02:06 GMT

Yes, there are regional variations in American English. Do you know which accent is chosen by MW as the reference in the pronunciation keys. Is it General American?

My problem is that, as I have mentioned before, they are indeed denoted differently in British English. The first one is a simple vowel while the second one is a diphthong / e /. The question is whether the diphthong / e / ONLY occurs before an R. If it occurs before some other consonants, such as D, L, T, N ( / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / ), using / er / to indicate a different sound from / e / is not a good idea because you'll have problems showing the differences between / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / and / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / respectively.

Certain combination of sounds just do not exist in English and that's why they don't need to use diacritic to indicate that the P in SP is non-aspirated whereas an initial P is aspirated. The bottom line is that the pronunciation keys have to be non-ambiguous. This is the same reason why they don't need to use diacritic to indicate tapped intervocalic T or final dark L. (Clear L at syllabic final position does not exist.)

I did a search in my pronunciation dictionary and found that the combinations / -et / and / -el / do not exist. / -ed / and / -en / only exist when the spelling has an R between / e / and the following consonant. Since British English is non-rhotic, the corresponding American pronunciation would have an R before that consonant, resulting in / rd / and / rn /. So, / e / ONLY occurs before an R! As a result, using / er / in American English to represent the counterpart of the British English / e / is non-ambiguous after all!

After going through all these discussions, I finally found out the reasons.

Kooyeen, many thanks indeed for discussing this issue with me. Without your insights, I would not have been able to find out the underlying issues that has been troubling me.

EDIT:

It appears that / e / was the result of the influence of the following R sound on the / e / sound. It is therefore actually the equivalent of / er / in American English. However, because British English is non-rhotic, the R influence results in the / e / becoming a diphthong, i.e. a schwa is added after the / e / to become / e /.

EDIT 2:

While adding the above EDITed text, I just found that what I guessed was probably right.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/received-pronunciation/london/

The vowels of youth
Listen first to the vowel sound she uses in the words air, there, their, where, somewhere and parents. In traditional forms of RP, they would be pronounced with a diphthong â that is two vowel sounds. Older RP speakers would start with an <e> sound â as in bed â before drifting into a weak vowel rather like the initial sound in about. This type of pronunciation, also applied to words such as dare, hair and bear, was until relatively recently common in many English accents. The diphthong emerged once speakers began to omit the <r> sound at the end. Speakers throughout the UK once pronounced this <r> sound, but it is increasingly restricted to speakers in the West Country and far South West of England, a small area of Lancashire and most of Scotland and Ireland. It is also present in most US English accents. The <r> sound was initially replaced by the weak vowel at the end of the diphthong, but nowadays most younger RP speakers omit this final part of the diphthong and simply use a long <e> sound â thus shared is pronounced with exactly the same vowel as in shed, only the vowel is noticeably longer. This demonstrates perfectly how successive sound changes can radically alter the pronunciation of a set of words. Most RP speakers, like Michelle, now only distinguish between pairs such as fairs and fez or flared and fled simply by vowel length. Older speakers tend to use a diphthong for the first word in each pair.

It means that the Received Pronunciation that I have been learning (and indicated on all the dictionaries) is only that of the older generation! What a surprising finding from this simple question of fair-haired!

Re: fair-haired

Pter — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:13:03 GMT

In British English, what you said are two different vowels and are in fact denoted differently in IPA. The extended ones are diphthongs.

bet / bet /

bear / ber /

bee / bi: /

beer / bir /

(The non-rhotic "r" cannot be shown accurately.)

I wonder my understanding of IPA for British English may be totally inapplicable to American English.

Re: Question about how to pronounce Europe

Orpheus — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:10:01 GMT

I'd say that there is a slight difference between the US and UK pronunciation of the word. The first syllable of Europe in British English is generally pronounced with the diphthong // while in American English it is simply with the vowel //. The diphthong // is a characteristic of British English and is not found in American English; American English in corresponding places would have the simple vowel // followed by /r/.
The first consonant sound /j/ on the other hand is pronounced exactly the same in both American and British English. It is the same /j/ as in 'you'.

Re: Canadians and their English

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:54:21 GMT

General Canadian English is extremely similar to General American English. However, there are a number of differences between the two dialects. Firstly, GCE (General Canadian English) exhibits a linguistic phenomenon called Canadian Raising. Basically, the diphthong âaiâ--as in "by" or "lie"--is raised before voiceless consonants (t, k, p, s, f); by contrast, this diphthong is not raised before other consonants (v, z, d, b, l, m, n, r, etc). Thus, by using Canadian Raising, the words in the following word pairs can be pronounced differently: ride and write, five and fife, and rise and rice.
The diphthong "au," as in "loud," is commonly raised before the consonants "t," "th," "ch," and "s." This diphthong is not raised before the consonants "d," "z," "n," and "j." As was pointed out, the word "about" sounds like "a boat"... well, to American ears, that is. In General American English, the diphthong "ai" is not raised before any consonant, nor is the diphthong "au." Yet, this raising has been occurring in various areas of the U.S., and it has spread quite far.

Another difference between these dialects is that, in GCE, the vowel "o" is always pronounced as "o" before the consonant "r." Therefore, âsorryâ is pronounced sor-ee, âborrowâ is pronounced bor-row, and âsorrow,â sor-row. In General American English, the vowel "o" is sometimes pronounced as the vowel "a"--as in "father"--before the consonant "r." In GAE (General American English), "sorry" is pronounced sar-ee, "borrow" is pronounced bar-row, and âsor-rowâ is pronounced sar-row. This, nevertheless, isn't very common in GAE; in fact, I canât think of any other word that is pronounced with the vowel âa,â other than sorrow, borrow, and sorry.

Many Canadians pronounce the word "marry" as "merry." In GAE, âmarryâ is pronounced with the vowel âae.â

In GCE, "pasta," "mazda," "lava," "drama," âYahooÂ®,â "taco," and other similar words are pronounced with the vowel "ae." In GAE, these words are pronounced with the vowel "a.â In GCE, on the other hand, these and few other foreign words are pronounced with the vowel "a": macho, Guatemala, Bach, and karate. Why is this so? I sure as heck don't know; it's an anomaly.

Of course, let's not forget Canadian lexicon. In Canada, "pop" is universally used as a term for a carbonated beverage. Even in the U.S., "pop" is used quite widely. It's largely used in the Midwest, Upper Midwest, and Northwest. As well, many Canadians refer to candy bars as "chocolate bars."
In GCE, the idioms "in hospital" and "to university" are used, in lieu of the American idioms "in the hospital" and "to the university," which includes a definite article. So, one may say, "I'm going to have my surgery in hospital," or "I'm going to attend university during the fall."

The last letter of the Canadian alphabet, "zed," is different from the last letter of the American alphabet, "zee."

Well, this is pretty much all I know about GCE.

Re: pronunciation

Marvin A. — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:38:05 GMT

/mAr\oU/ doesn't make sense

Well, see, she only speaks English not Italian, so when she sees the word Mauro, in English, "au" is often pronounced as /A/* for example: audience, auction, she assumes that "Mauro" should have the /A/ vowel. The "r" of course is pronounced as a retroflex "r" of course, and the "o" becomes a diphthong, since a monophthongized "o" is generally not permitted in most English dialects especially in word final positions.

*(in dialects such as Western and Central Canadian English, and Western American English which have the f-b-c-c-d-d merger, which makes words such as father, bother, cot, caught, don, and dawn be pronounced with the same vowel: /A/)

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

Kooyeen — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:46:28 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

The American pronunciation of âoâ in your next example wouldnât be found in any regional accent of British English that I can call to mind immediately, though there is considerable variation in the pronunciation of this sound â for example, in Scotland, Liverpool and the West Country. Similarly, there are variations in the pronunciation of the âtalk, walk, callâ vowel and the âno, so, lowâ diphthong from region to region â but none that I can think of that are close enough to the American pronunciation to be considered the same.

The tap/flap is quite a distinctive feature of American English. Itâs not in the standard British English inventory, but you might hear it in some Irish accents.

I've heard British singers who tap their t's, pronounce the o's in "not, god, etc." like the "a" in "car", ect. Is that because they want to imitate an American Accent, then? Robbie Williams sings that way, he's British, so what kind of British accent does he have?

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 09:20:09 GMT

Itâs rather hard to work out quite what you are looking for here. Some of these features â as Marvin A was pointing out â are not specifically American English pronunciation, but the allophonic variation that occurs in connected speech. That is, the pronunciation of some sounds is influenced by the sounds around them because of the way you have to move your lips, tongue, velum and so forth to get from one sound to another. Thus, your first four examples show the impact of the following âyâ /j/ sound, and this is not specific to either a British or American accent.

The American pronunciation of âoâ in your next example wouldnât be found in any regional accent of British English that I can call to mind immediately, though there is considerable variation in the pronunciation of this sound â for example, in Scotland, Liverpool and the West Country. Similarly, there are variations in the pronunciation of the âtalk, walk, callâ vowel and the âno, so, lowâ diphthong from region to region â but none that I can think of that are close enough to the American pronunciation to be considered the same.

The tap/flap is quite a distinctive feature of American English. Itâs not in the standard British English inventory, but you might hear it in some Irish accents.

Overall, there is no regional accent of British English which could be mistaken for American English, in my opinion.

Lilâ Ruby Rose

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

Kooyeen — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:03:55 GMT

Marvin A. wrote:
>> z sound + y = s as in pleasure (for example, the s in "as you know" sounds like the s in pleasure) <<
>> s + y = sh (this year ----> this sheer) <<

These two are actually not found in General American, especially the first one.

>> American "o" (not, god, cop, top, shop, stop, shock... pronounced like in American English, where that "o" is a kind of "ah") <<

It's [ A ] or [ O ] or [ Q ] or [ a ] in different North American dialcets.

>> tapped t, some t's become slight d's (put it away -----> puddid away, about it -----> aboudit) <<

In North American English they become flaps not d's.

>> the diphthong in words like "no, so, low, owe", pronounced the American way. <<

Some dialects have monophthongs for those.

Yes, but I was just trying to describe some features that can be found in American English (I didn't say "general American"). Very few people understand phonetic symbols, so I wanted to point out some well known features without trying to describe those features accurately (I probably described them very poorly, but if anyone wants a more precise description in my post, I'll provide it).

So now let's see if anyone from the UK feels like giving their opinions...
PS: I said "anyone from the UK", well, the others are free to give their opinions as well, of course

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

Marvin A. — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 03:07:31 GMT

>> z sound + y = s as in pleasure (for example, the s in "as you know" sounds like the s in pleasure) <<
>> s + y = sh (this year ----> this sheer) <<

These two are actually not found in General American, especially the first one.

>> American "o" (not, god, cop, top, shop, stop, shock... pronounced like in American English, where that "o" is a kind of "ah") <<

It's [ A ] or [ O ] or [ Q ] or [ a ] in different North American dialcets.

>> tapped t, some t's become slight d's (put it away -----> puddid away, about it -----> aboudit) <<

In North American English they become flaps not d's.

>> the diphthong in words like "no, so, low, owe", pronounced the American way. <<

Some dialects have monophthongs for those.

American Eng. features in the UK

Kooyeen — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:16:48 GMT

Hi,
I'd like to know if somewhere in the UK there are some features that can be found in American English. I'll try to describe some of the features I'm curious about, I hope you'll understand what I mean, because I won't use phonetic symbols and so my transcriptions won't be accurate. However, I hope you'll recognize the features I'm trying to describe:

s + y = sh (this year ----> this sheer)
t + y = ch (but you -----> buh chyoo, don't you -----> don chyoo, can't you ---->can chyoo,...)
d + y ----> the d becomes j as in junior, in cases like: did you, would you, could you,...
z sound + y = s as in pleasure (for example, the s in "as you know" sounds like the s in pleasure)
American "o" (not, god, cop, top, shop, stop, shock... pronounced like in American English, where that "o" is a kind of "ah")
tapped t, some t's become slight d's (put it away -----> puddid away, about it -----> aboudit)
the vowel in words like "talk, walk, call, all" pronounced the American way, where that vowel is more open.
the diphthong in words like "no, so, low, owe", pronounced the American way.

Are those features found somewhere or sometimes in the UK? And if there's something similar in the UK, who speaks like that and where do people talk that way?

Thank you in advance