English questions

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I could well imagine German [ç] and [ʃ] merging; a similar change seems to have happened at some point in Middle English.

[WeepingElf]

I could well imagine German [ç] and [ʃ] merging; a similar change seems to have happened at some point in Middle English.

It actually happened in some German dialects.

[Linguoboy]

This is more an English-learners-of-German question. It seems to me that English-speakers in general have an easier time learning the ach-Laut that the ich-Laut, despite the fact that the ach-Laut is only found in certain English varieties such as Scottish English, and the ich-Laut being found natively as a phone -- but not a phoneme -- in much of NAE at least. (For instance, /h/ before /j/, /i/, and /ɪr/ is pronounced here as [ç], and indeed that is how I personally learned to pronounce the ich-Laut.) Any idea why this is so?

For most English speakers, this phone is found exclusively in initial position, whereas the Ich-Laut is most common in coda position (the chief exceptions being a few recent borrowings like Chemie, China, Charisma and not for all speakers even in those cases). Even moving a full-fledged phoneme from one of these contexts to the other isn't easy--look at how English-speakers struggle with initial /ŋ/ despite the fact that is should be no harder to produce than initial /n/ or /m/.

[Moose-tache]

I would add that English speakers, no matter their ability to track and pronounce it, are aware of the existence of velar~uvular fricatives from a young age. It's the notorious "throaty foreign sound" that is impossible to not notice. The palatal fricative, however, has no status in the public imagination and many speakers would be surprised if you pointed out its existence.

[Travis B.]

whereas the Ich-Laut is most common in coda position (the chief exceptions being a few recent borrowings like Chemie, China, Charisma and not for all speakers even in those cases).

A key exception in German is in -chen.

[Raphael]

What is the exact meaning of the word "cute" in Hiberno-English? It seems to be subtly different from its meaning in most other varieties of English, but I'm not entirely sure how.

[Raphael]

What is the exact meaning of the word "cute" in Hiberno-English? It seems to be subtly different from its meaning in most other varieties of English, but I'm not entirely sure how.

Bump?

[Travis B.]

Which pronunciation of Chicago do you favor (I have been listening about "End of Beginning" by Djo, i.e. Joe Keery, on repeat today), which prominently has THOUGHT in Chicago while from hearing people from Chicago speak I generally hear it with a clear centralized or even fronted LOT (i.e. [a]). In the dialect here in the Milwaukee area THOUGHT (as [ɒ]) is favored, and I highly associate the LOT pronunciation with [a] with people native to Chicago.

However, apparently the THOUGHT pronunciation actually originated in Chicago itself as a reaction to the fronting of LOT and its deprecation, resulting in hypercorrection. But here in southeastern Wisconsin, the pronunciation of LOT as [a] (except when adjacent to /r w h kw gw/) is not deprecated at all (and I sense far less negative views here of Milwaukee dialect than I have heard people have of Chicago dialect, to the point that I did not realize that not everyone in the US has [a] for LOT until I was an adult), so the THOUGHT pronunciation would have to be acquired through dialect borrowing from people in Chicago itself rather than being a parallel innovation here in the Milwaukee area.

So how do you pronounce Chicago and why?

[bradrn]

Which pronunciation of Chicago do you favor (I have been listening about "End of Beginning" by Djo, i.e. Joe Keery, on repeat today), which prominently has THOUGHT in Chicago while from hearing people from Chicago speak I generally hear it with a clear centralized or even fronted LOT (i.e. [a]). In the dialect here in the Milwaukee area THOUGHT (as [ɒ]) is favored, and I highly associate the LOT pronunciation with [a] with people native to Chicago.

I don’t recall either of these pronounciations. I pronounce it with [ɑ] (as in PALM). Of course, it’s not a city which I often refer to or hear others mention.

[zompist]

Which pronunciation of Chicago do you favor (I have been listening about "End of Beginning" by Djo, i.e. Joe Keery, on repeat today), which prominently has THOUGHT in Chicago while from hearing people from Chicago speak I generally hear it with a clear centralized or even fronted LOT (i.e. [a]). In the dialect here in the Milwaukee area THOUGHT (as [ɒ]) is favored, and I highly associate the LOT pronunciation with [a] with people native to Chicago.

However, apparently the THOUGHT pronunciation actually originated in Chicago itself as a reaction to the fronting of LOT and its deprecation, resulting in hypercorrection.

Not quite: the old lower-class Chicago accent, the one they were reacting to, was [æ]. You can hear an example at 0:12 in Yuri Rasovsky's Chicago Language Tape. Note that this is an actor's rendition, not his own dialect.

I have the hypercorrected /ɔ/, which I've been told is close to [ɑ]. I'd've picked that up from my parents, who were natives of the city. What I hear outsiders saying is [a].

These days whites are just 31% of the city, so "people native to Chicago" are probably all over the place phonetically.

[Travis B.]

I have the hypercorrected /ɔ/, which I've been told is close to [ɑ]. I'd've picked that up from my parents, who were natives of the city. What I hear outsiders saying is [a].

That sounds like mother, who grew up in Kenosha - her /ɔ/ (excepting /ɔr/), which she has in Chicago, is typically [ɑ]. (A key distinction between how people from the Milwaukee area and people from Chicagoland speak is the realization of /ɔ/, specifically its rounding or lack thereof.)

[Travis B.]

These days whites are just 31% of the city, so "people native to Chicago" are probably all over the place phonetically.

To Wisconsinites like myself, "Chicago" means all of what people from Illinois call Chicagoland.

[Travis B.]

Not quite: the old lower-class Chicago accent, the one they were reacting to, was [æ]. You can hear an example at 0:12 in Yuri Rasovsky's Chicago Language Tape. Note that this is an actor's rendition, not his own dialect.

I do not think I have ever heard the old lower-class Chicago accent, since I have never heard someone from Chicagoland with [æ] or LOT/PALM. (In contrast I have heard people from Chicagoland with markedly raised and diphthongized realizations of /æ/; e.g. I swear I have heard Hillary Clinton, a native of Chicagoland, pronounce /æ/ as [ɪə̯].)

(Personally I do not trust an actor's rendition, since it will inevitably miss key phonological points; e.g. I not infrequently notice features I had previously missed of the phonology of the dialect here, so unless one is a trained linguist doing detailed fieldwork one is liable to also miss these things, and even then it seems that not much attention is given to the details of, say, NAE dialects even by linguists.)

[zompist]

Not quite: the old lower-class Chicago accent, the one they were reacting to, was [æ]. You can hear an example at 0:12 in Yuri Rasovsky's Chicago Language Tape. Note that this is an actor's rendition, not his own dialect.

I do not think I have ever heard the old lower-class Chicago accent, since I have never heard someone from Chicagoland with [æ] or LOT/PALM. (In contrast I have heard people from Chicagoland with markedly raised and diphthongized realizations of /æ/; e.g. I swear I have heard Hillary Clinton, a native of Chicagoland, pronounce /æ/ as [ɪə̯].)

(Personally I do not trust an actor's rendition, since it will inevitably miss key phonological points; e.g. I not infrequently notice features I had previously missed of the phonology of the dialect here, so unless one is a trained linguist doing detailed fieldwork one is liable to also miss these things, and even then it seems that not much attention is given to the details of, say, NAE dialects even by linguists.)

Sure, that's why I pointed it out.

Unfortunately I don't recall my source for the [æ/ɔ] split. Probably sci.lang. From googling various pages, it looks like the split is now just [a] vs. [ɔ]. But Google sucks these days and I don't see a way to get a more scholarly discussion.

The thing is, the hypercorrection theory makes no sense if the "lower class" pronunciation was in fact the standard [a] that was the original pronunciation, and is what everyone else in the country says. The backing does make sense if, in fact, the lower class pronunciation was fronted.

[Travis B.]

Unfortunately I don't recall my source for the [æ/ɔ] split. Probably sci.lang. From googling various pages, it looks like the split is now just [a] vs. [ɔ]. But Google sucks these days and I don't see a way to get a more scholarly discussion.

The thing is, the hypercorrection theory makes no sense if the "lower class" pronunciation was in fact the standard [a] that was the original pronunciation, and is what everyone else in the country says. The backing does make sense if, in fact, the lower class pronunciation was fronted.

The GA pronunciation I would expect to be [ɑ], while the locally standard pronunciation (i.e. how one would pronounce it carefully but without hypercorrection) seems to be [a]. I am not from Chicago, but my normal pronunciation of LOT outside of certain environments is [a] regardless of register, and I hear a distinct difference between it and GA LOT, i.e. [ɑ], to the point that this difference alone makes clear whether one is originally from the Inland North or not.

[Raphael]

Which pronunciation of Chicago do you favor (I have been listening about "End of Beginning" by Djo, i.e. Joe Keery, on repeat today), which prominently has THOUGHT in Chicago while from hearing people from Chicago speak I generally hear it with a clear centralized or even fronted LOT (i.e. [a]). In the dialect here in the Milwaukee area THOUGHT (as [ɒ]) is favored, and I highly associate the LOT pronunciation with [a] with people native to Chicago.

However, apparently the THOUGHT pronunciation actually originated in Chicago itself as a reaction to the fronting of LOT and its deprecation, resulting in hypercorrection. But here in southeastern Wisconsin, the pronunciation of LOT as [a] (except when adjacent to /r w h kw gw/) is not deprecated at all (and I sense far less negative views here of Milwaukee dialect than I have heard people have of Chicago dialect, to the point that I did not realize that not everyone in the US has [a] for LOT until I was an adult), so the THOUGHT pronunciation would have to be acquired through dialect borrowing from people in Chicago itself rather than being a parallel innovation here in the Milwaukee area.

So how do you pronounce Chicago and why?

Which syllable, specifically, do you and the people who responded to you mean?

[Travis B.]

Which pronunciation of Chicago do you favor (I have been listening about "End of Beginning" by Djo, i.e. Joe Keery, on repeat today), which prominently has THOUGHT in Chicago while from hearing people from Chicago speak I generally hear it with a clear centralized or even fronted LOT (i.e. [a]). In the dialect here in the Milwaukee area THOUGHT (as [ɒ]) is favored, and I highly associate the LOT pronunciation with [a] with people native to Chicago.

However, apparently the THOUGHT pronunciation actually originated in Chicago itself as a reaction to the fronting of LOT and its deprecation, resulting in hypercorrection. But here in southeastern Wisconsin, the pronunciation of LOT as [a] (except when adjacent to /r w h kw gw/) is not deprecated at all (and I sense far less negative views here of Milwaukee dialect than I have heard people have of Chicago dialect, to the point that I did not realize that not everyone in the US has [a] for LOT until I was an adult), so the THOUGHT pronunciation would have to be acquired through dialect borrowing from people in Chicago itself rather than being a parallel innovation here in the Milwaukee area.

So how do you pronounce Chicago and why?

Which syllable, specifically, do you and the people who responded to you mean?

We mean the second syllable, even though apparently there is also variation in the third syllable (i.e. whether /oʊ/ is reduced to a schwa or not).

[Linguoboy]

We mean the second syllable, even though apparently there is also variation in the third syllable (i.e. whether /oʊ/ is reduced to a schwa or not).

The reduced vowel is very old school; I can't recall the last time I heard someone use it.

(I myself have /ah/ for the second vowel, but I'm not a native, just a longtime resident.)

[Travis B.]

(I myself have /ah/ for the second vowel, but I'm not a native, just a longtime resident.)

But by /ah/ do you mean [a] or [ɑ]?

[Linguoboy]

(I myself have /ah/ for the second vowel, but I'm not a native, just a longtime resident.)

But by /ah/ do you mean [a] or [ɑ]?

Yes.