The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Nortaneous]

I have "isle" /aɪ̯əl/ but "I'll" /æl/~/al/~/əl/

IMD -'ll deletes coda semivowels and (I think) the a-o contrast is neutralized before /l/. The only irregular form in this analysis is we'll /wul/.

Code: Select all

aj  ol   | wij wul
juw jul  | jol (joləl?)
hij hil  | ðej ðel
ʃij ʃil  |
it  itəl |

[bbbosborne]

Does anyone else pronounce isle as /aɪ̯əl/?

i do, except in fast speech, where it comes out as [äɫ]

[Vlürch]

In careful speech, probably.

isle /ajəl/

I have "isle" /aɪ̯əl/

i do, except in fast speech, where it comes out as [äɫ]

Oh, good to know I'm not just weird (at least in this case). I could swear that most of the times I've heard it, it's been /aɪ̯əl/, but there seems to be nothing online about that being a thing except stuff where I'll is also said to be pronounced like that, which just sounds weird and I don't think I've ever heard it. I mean, isle and aisle are homophones (at least for me), but I'll could never be. Maybe it's that I'm not a native English-speaker and my exposure to English is mostly through films and TV series, on the internet, etc. whereas in real life it's almost exclusively in writing and randomly overhearing tourists and whatever. The L is probably dark for me too, at least sometimes, but I honestly can't tell the difference in most contexts... only that it's dark before /k/ and /g/ at least after back-ish vowels or something. Probably word-finally after said vowels, too, but...

I have at least a potential distinction between /aɪl/ and /aɪəl/ -- vile vs. vial -- though how reliably I actually make it I don't know.

Same, but I could imagine saying vile as /vaɪ̯əl/ accidentally since vileness would more likely come out as /vaɪ̯əlnəs/ or whatever; I mean, [ʋɐɪ̯ʔ̞ʲəl̪n̪ë̞s] or something. Not sure what [ë̞] is phonemically or if it's even [ë̞] phonetically, but I don't think it's as back as [ə] and could be either higher or lower... probably various kinds of E-sounds come out at random.

[Linguoboy]

fracas

[anteallach]

fracas

Pseudo-French: /ˈfraka/ (yes, that's a TRAP vowel in word-final position).

[Travis B.]

fracas: [ˈfʁʷɛkɘs]
isle: [a(ː)ɯ̯], carefully [ˈaːjɯ(ː)]
vile: [va(ː)ɯ̯], carefully [ˈvaːjɯ(ː)]
vial: [va(ː)ɯ̯], carefully [ˈvaːjɯ(ː)]
I'll: [a(ː)ɤ̯]
mile: [ma(ː)ɤ̯], carefully [ma(ː)ɯ̯]
we'll: [wʊ(ː)], carefully [wi(ː)ɯ̯]

(I should note that the [a] in [a(ː)ɯ̯] and [ˈaːjɯ(ː)] is quite fronted, almost [æ]. reflecting how my normal /aɪ/, [ae̯], starts from a fronted position, whereas the [a] in [a(ː)ɤ̯] is more central, indicating that the /aɪ/ has been more fully assimilated to the /l/.)

[Pabappa]

fracas

This is one of those words Ive never said out loud, but if I was reading a title that had the word in it, I'd probably just fudge it with a weak vowel somewhere between [æ] and [ɑ]. Or perhaps just [a]. So for the whole word I'd say [fr(ɑ~æ).kəs].

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

How about Babel? I say /'bei.bəl/, but apparently the majority pronunciation, even as used by Alex Trebek, is to merge it with "babble" as something like /'bæ.bəl/. It seems to lead to confusion in spelling too, as in http://www.beanleafpress.com/wp-content ... -Party.jpg

[Linguoboy]

How about Babel? I say /'bei.bəl/, but apparently the majority pronunciation, even as used by Alex Trebek, is to merge it with "babble" as something like /'bæ.bəl/.

I mean, Babel is the etymon of babble, isn't it?

I have /æ/ in Babel but /e:/ in Babelfish (which is like a brand name to me).

[Zaarin]

How about Babel? I say /'bei.bəl/, but apparently the majority pronunciation, even as used by Alex Trebek, is to merge it with "babble" as something like /'bæ.bəl/.

I mean, Babel is the etymon of babble, isn't it?

I have /æ/ in Babel but /e:/ in Babelfish (which is like a brand name to me).

I was under the impression that babble < Babel was a folk etymology. Either way, I pronounced both with /æ/ and have never heard either with /ei/ personally.

[Linguoboy]

I was under the impression that babble < Babel was a folk etymology. Either way, I pronounced both with /æ/ and have never heard either with /ei/ personally.

In the strict sense of the term, /e:/ > /æ/ in Babel would be folk etymology, since it represents an alteration in the phonetic development of a word under influence from an etymologically unrelated one.

[Estav]

I was under the impression that babble < Babel was a folk etymology. Either way, I pronounced both with /æ/ and have never heard either with /ei/ personally.

In the strict sense of the term, /e:/ > /æ/ in Babel would be folk etymology, since it represents an alteration in the phonetic development of a word under influence from an etymologically unrelated one.

It's not obvious to me that the pronunciation of Babel with /æ/ is 100% attributable to influence from babble. The spelling pattern is somewhat ambiguous (compare camel) and the related place-name Babylon has /æ/; these seem like two other factors that may have contributed to the use of /æ/ in Babel.

I have adopted the pronunciation with /e/ (I used to think of it as having /æ/; I rarely say or hear it aloud) because that seems more regular: it follows the rule that in words taken from Latin, a vowel letter before a single consonant takes its "long" pronunciation in a stressed penult syllable. But I think nobody is entirely consistent in following that rule for the letter A: I can't imagine using /e/ in drama, lapis or Cincinnati.

[Zaarin]

I was under the impression that babble < Babel was a folk etymology. Either way, I pronounced both with /æ/ and have never heard either with /ei/ personally.

In the strict sense of the term, /e:/ > /æ/ in Babel would be folk etymology, since it represents an alteration in the phonetic development of a word under influence from an etymologically unrelated one.

It's not obvious to me that the pronunciation of Babel with /æ/ is 100% attributable to influence from babble. The spelling pattern is somewhat ambiguous (compare camel) and the related place-name Babylon has /æ/; these seem like two other factors that may have contributed to the use of /æ/ in Babel.

I have adopted the pronunciation with /e/ (I used to think of it as having /æ/; I rarely say or hear it aloud) because that seems more regular: it follows the rule that in words taken from Latin, a vowel letter before a single consonant takes its "long" pronunciation in a stressed penult syllable. But I think nobody is entirely consistent in following that rule for the letter A: I can't imagine using /e/ in drama, lapis or Cincinnati.

I've heard /ei/ in lapis; it made me cringe.

[Pabappa]

I've heard /ei/ in lapis; it made me cringe.

my mistake, though I've never said it out loud. I only know it from a video game and , as lapis lazuli, the Bible. Wiktionary as of yet does not list lapis as an English word.

[Zaarin]

I've heard /ei/ in lapis; it made me cringe.

my mistake, though I've never said it out loud. I only know it from a video game and , as lapis lazuli, the Bible. Wiktionary as of yet does not list lapis as an English word.

Yes, for me lapis is short for lapis lazuli.

[Vlürch]

Babel [bɑːbəl̪]
babble [bæbəl̪]
Bible [bɐɪ̯bəl̪]
bubble [bɑbəl̪]
(At least some of these may come out with a dark L, but I'm not really sure.)

fracas [fɹ̠ækɑː]
My first instinct was [fɹ̠æʃɑː] but then I noticed that it wasn't *frachas, so maybe [fɹ̠ækɑː]...? AND WTF, that's what Wiktionary says is correct.

lapis lazuli [læpɪs læzᵊlɪ] or [lɑːpɪs lɑːzjʊliː]
The latter strikes me as way too posh to say unironically since it's how art historians say it, but if I was in pretentious hipster mode...

What about flood? I realised I pronounce it [fluːd~flʊd~flod~flɔd] while trying to make a clickbaity Atlantis video because that's currently hip, so much that it became impossible to make said video except if half of it would be me laughing at my shitty pronunciation. It just kept coming out with pretty much any rounded back vowel rather than the unrounded one it should actually be pronounced with. Obviously this is because of how it's written, but it doesn't happen with blood or whatever (well, maybe [blɔd], but definitely not [bluːd] or [blʊd] or anything), so I'm not really sure why that word is so hard. Even when I try my hardest to say something that could pass for /flʌd/, it doesn't work and I slip up. Like, I can say it right by itself, but if I start saying any kind of sentence where it's used...

I swear, if I'm the only one who does this, I'll stop using English forever sigh, facepalm and laugh at myself...

[Zju]

Is there a dialect in which ore oar or awe are all pronounced the same?

[Travis B.]

Is there a dialect in which ore oar or awe are all pronounced the same?

I presume any NORTH-FORCE-merged non-rhotic variety? And I'm not certain, but shouldn't ore and oar both be FORCE words anyways?

[anteallach]

Is there a dialect in which ore oar or awe are all pronounced the same?

I presume any NORTH-FORCE-merged non-rhotic variety? And I'm not certain, but shouldn't ore and oar both be FORCE words anyways?

Yes, they're both FORCE.

[Ryusenshi]

I think ore oar or awe are homophones in most accents of England and New Zealand, and in pretty much all accents of Australia. Also for non-rhotic New Yorkers.

They would be different in Boston, however, where FORCE is [ɔə] while THOUGHT is [ɒː]. Younger speakers tend to merge NORTH with FORCE, even the non-rhotic ones, but both become [ɔə] so ore is still different from awe. AAVE speakers may do something similar.

[Raholeun]

Apparently anglophones pronounce "Goethe" with a rhotacized vowel, sometimes two. Why?