Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Vijay]

The first rule of the history of Chinese phonology is that we do not talk about the history of Chinese phonology.

But the history of Chinese phonology is so interesting! And it usually seems to make some sense.

You say 'no significant regionalisms' and then admit to the most famous American regionalism!

I think he means regionalisms from an American perspective, i.e. he doesn't speak in a way that clearly identifies him with a particular region within the US. The US doesn't really have dialects the way that most countries (including the UK) seem to. Dialect differences are pretty minimal in the US, and isoglosses are all so messy and interstate migration so common that they can't be reliably associated with any particular area of the country.

[Nortaneous]

I have a hard time telling the difference between glottal reinforcement and glottal replacement, but my guess is that it'd be something like:
[ðə kʰæʔ bɔkt ɪʔ wɔkn̩ æə̯ʔtsaɜ̯d ɔn ə wɛʔ moɹnɪŋ ɪn̪‿n̪ə wɛʔ gɹæs wɪðæə̯ʔ sʌm soɹɽə kʰæʔ kʰəʊʔt]

The phoneme /j/ is quite common. But two things have occurred to me about this phoneme.

1. Many of the languages set on Almea lack the phoneme. Which I think is super interesting.
2. I was curious how many natural languages lack the phoneme.

It's been really hard finding any articles at all showing a lack of this particularly common sound. While I am at it, how common is it to lack /w/ or an equivalent sound such as /v/, /ʋ/, or /ɰ/?

UPSID shows about 85% of languages in its database with /j/. You can poke around here, if you want. (I think I remember an old thread where people were talking about unreliabilities in UPSID, but I don't remember details.)

It's probably a bad idea to use PHOIBLE for statistics, but you can poke around in it here.

It looks like some of the inventories from the sources GM and PH added /j/ as "/y/", so there are a lot of spurious /j/-less inventories with front rounded vowels.

(I was halfway through writing an email to the guy who wrote the search thing to report a bug when I realized I was missing an 'and' from the end of my query, lmao.)

To find inventories with no /w/-like sound, you'd do something like

Code: Select all

no /w/ no /v/ and no /ʋ/ and no /ɰ/ and no /β%/ and

.

The US doesn't really have dialects the way that most countries (including the UK) seem to. Dialect differences are pretty minimal in the US, and isoglosses are all so messy and interstate migration so common that they can't be reliably associated with any particular area of the country.

This is only true on the West Coast, and even there it's probably possible to tell the difference between California and Cascadia.

[Boşkoventi]

And you speak which dialect?

[and just for the sake of completeness, since I coincidentally included both 'walk' and 'balk' - do you deround 'talk' as well?]

I guess I'd have to call it GA. No significant regionalisms that I'm aware of. I have both FATHER-BOTHER and COT-CAUGHT mergers

*looks quizzically*

You say 'no significant regionalisms' and then admit to the most famous American regionalism! So... you're most likely from the West?

The suburbs of Washington, DC, actually. Though I've noticed it shares a lot with west coast dialects.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my dialect isn't tied to a region. It's basically the 'standard' dialect of educated, middle-class Americans, which you'll hear from people in the media. I've met people from all over the country who, as far as I can tell, speak the same way I do. I'm not sure if "General American" is the right term, but I don't know what else to call it, and most of what's said on the Wikipedia page about GA applies.

I've also noticed that word-initial /t/ may be flapped as well, e.g. "by tomorrow" [baɪ̯ ɾəˈmɑɚoʊ̯]. Not really sure what's going on there.

Unstressed intervocalic /t/ is often flapped across word boundaries in American English.

Yes, but I find it odd/interesting that it can happen at the beginning of a word.

[mèþru]

People in my area (Central NJ) can easily tell if someone is from the NYC area, forget about New England or the US South

[Nortaneous]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my dialect isn't tied to a region. It's basically the 'standard' dialect of educated, middle-class Americans, which you'll hear from people in the media.

I have ... COT-CAUGHT mergers

u wot m8

[Vijay]

This is only true on the West Coast

Nope.

[Nortaneous]

This is only true on the West Coast

Nope.

It's certainly not true of the East Coast, where there are well-defined dialectal regions that lack the father-bother merger, or preserve the TRAP-BATH split, or are nonrhotic. The South has the 'on' isogloss, and then monophthongization and so on - and in some regions, there are very distinct dialectal differences. (The High Tider dialect is still alive, for one thing.)

Up north, there's the NCVS, and then monophthongization of long vowels in areas that had a lot of Scandinavian immigrants.

Now, the upper middle class has adopted the Californian accent nationwide, so that confuses things - but even then, there are sometimes tells. I'd guess the 'on' isogloss would apply even to them.

[Boşkoventi]

You say 'no significant regionalisms' and then admit to the most famous American regionalism!

I think he means regionalisms from an American perspective, i.e. he doesn't speak in a way that clearly identifies him with a particular region within the US. The US doesn't really have dialects the way that most countries (including the UK) seem to. Dialect differences are pretty minimal in the US, and isoglosses are all so messy and interstate migration so common that they can't be reliably associated with any particular area of the country.

As others have said, there absolutely are dialects. Most are fairly mild, but some could almost be classified as distinct languages. While visiting family in Tennessee some years ago, I encountered a man who I could not understand at all. My cousin, who grew up in Knoxville and has a bit of an accent, couldn't either. Only my uncle, who I guess has more experience with 'hill folk', could speak to the guy.

[Vijay]

Yeah but all of that is way less dialect variation than the UK (or even just England) has and in fact probably less than most countries.

Now, the upper middle class has adopted the Californian accent nationwide, so that confuses things - but even then, there are sometimes tells.

It's not just the upper middle class. I've lived in the South almost my entire life, and I don't have monophthongization (and what is this "on" isogloss anyway?). I'm not sure what if anything could characterize me as upper middle class, but I've had poorer friends who don't have it either and who also have lived here their whole lives.

[Boşkoventi]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my dialect isn't tied to a region. It's basically the 'standard' dialect of educated, middle-class Americans, which you'll hear from people in the media.

I have ... COT-CAUGHT mergers

u wot m8

This from the guy who says [æə̯ʔtsaɜ̯d]?

Can't say that I've ever heard CAUGHT from people in the media. And yes, I can tell the difference (I encounter all kinds of accents on a regular basis, so I may be more attuned to this sort of thing than the average person). I notice when people have a distinct CAUGHT/CLOTH vowel, especially when it's a weird diphthong like [ɑɔ], [uɔ], or [oə] (I've heard the latter from Marylanders in "on", which is apparently a thing).

[Whimemsz]

And you speak which dialect?

[and just for the sake of completeness, since I coincidentally included both 'walk' and 'balk' - do you deround 'talk' as well?]

I guess I'd have to call it GA. No significant regionalisms that I'm aware of. I have both FATHER-BOTHER and COT-CAUGHT mergers

*looks quizzically*

You say 'no significant regionalisms' and then admit to the most famous American regionalism! So... you're most likely from the West?

I wouldn't call the cot-caught merger the most significant American regionalism since it doesn't actually correspond very nicely to regions, certainly not as much as some other well-known features (the NCVS, southern monophthongization, New York City vowels, etc.). I'm from Massachusetts, about 20 miles from Boston, but I speak essentially "GA" with the exception of the cot-caught merger (and some /æ/-diphthongization; and no, no California Vowel Shift or Canadian Raising for me -- though I should note the cot-caught merger is actually common in Boston/New England, but I merge them to [a]~[ɑ] as in GA, not [ɒ] or whatever).

That being said -- Vijay, there's absolutely regional American dialects, very distinctive ones. I've now lived in the Houston suburbs for many years, and you can still find plenty of people who sound like Dubya or Rex Tillerson in the sticks or if they're old enough (~50+; and some younger (sub)urban people have more subtle hints of Southern vowels as well, including sometimes the pin-pen merger, plus *everyone* who's not a transplant uses "y'all" although that's now spreading outside the South and becoming less of a clear-cut regional feature [and it was already present in the non-regional sociolect AAVE]). There's also of course the NCVS, many major cities/regions on the eastern seaboard have immediately-identifiable dialects, you have the western upper midwest, Californian English, backwoods Louisiana [aka "incomprehensible"] and New Orleans [aka "might as well be NYC but more hillbilly" -- though I don't actually know how strong this dialect is faring(?), but I did work with a middle-class woman from New Orleans in her 40s with a very strong Nawlins accent], etc. etc., some of which Nort pointed out.

[Nortaneous]

Can't say that I've ever heard CAUGHT from people in the media.

Weird. Then again, I don't pay much attention to the media.

I notice when people have a distinct CAUGHT/CLOTH vowel, especially when it's a weird diphthong like [ɑɔ], [uɔ], or [oə] (I've heard the latter from Marylanders in "on", which is apparently a thing).

Yeah, my dad has [uə] in "on", and AFAIK that's the only word where it appears.

[Salmoneus]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my dialect isn't tied to a region. It's basically the 'standard' dialect of educated, middle-class Americans, which you'll hear from people in the media.

I have ... COT-CAUGHT mergers

u wot m8

This from the guy who says [æə̯ʔtsaɜ̯d]?

Can't say that I've ever heard CAUGHT from people in the media.

This would greatly surprise me. Most Americans lack the merger, including the great majority of people from New York and Chicago, two major cultural centres. I know California is overrepresented in your media, but surely there are some easterners on TV? If nothing else, your White House seems to be filled with Southerners and New Yorkers...


Vijay: nobody would deny that American dialects are fewer and less distinguished than UK dialects. But that doesn't mean they don't exist...



EDIT: if you've ever seen Stephen Colbert, for example, he's in the media and lacks the merger...

[Vijay]

But it does mean that nine times out of ten, if you ask someone in the US "what dialect do you speak?" they won't be able to give you a straight answer. They will pretty much all say "GA."

[Salmoneus]

But it does mean that nine times out of ten, if you ask someone in the US "what dialect do you speak?" they won't be able to give you a straight answer. They will pretty much all say "GA."

Well yeah, but if you ask that to someone in the UK they'll just look puzzled or insulted.

I would hope that this forum was part of the 1% who know what a dialect is...

[mèþru]

I completely agree with Whimemsz

[Vijay]

So are there any parts of the US where there is a local dialect that is a) not shared with other parts of the country and b) also not dying out?

[mèþru]

Well there are local convergence zones where they mix features from separate dialects: where I live it's a mix of GA, NYC and BEV

[Vijay]

BEV?

[mèþru]

Black English Vernacular - I live near Trenton and a lot of people here have moved from there.