Pronunciation of Standard English in America (1919)

[zompist]

• "in the popular dialects" [θ] and [ð] are sometimes completely replaced by [t] and [d]: think [tɪŋk], that [dæt] — i've heard [dæt] before, but never [tɪŋk], at least not from a u.s. native speaker

I think "popular" here might mean "AAVE". TH-stopping exists sporadically on this side of the pond too, most notably Irish English where the dental think [t̪ɪŋk] contrasts with the alveolar tink [tɪŋk].

Stops in place of [θð] were by no means limited to AAVE in the early 20th century— it was stereotypical lower class or big-city pronunciation. Immigration from Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America undoubtedly reinforced it.

(I'm sure it hasn't died out, either, but I expect it's receded.)

[Travis B.]

• "in the popular dialects" [θ] and [ð] are sometimes completely replaced by [t] and [d]: think [tɪŋk], that [dæt] — i've heard [dæt] before, but never [tɪŋk], at least not from a u.s. native speaker

I think "popular" here might mean "AAVE". TH-stopping exists sporadically on this side of the pond too, most notably Irish English where the dental think [t̪ɪŋk] contrasts with the alveolar tink [tɪŋk].

Stops in place of [θð] were by no means limited to AAVE in the early 20th century— it was stereotypical lower class or big-city pronunciation. Immigration from Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America undoubtedly reinforced it.

(I'm sure it hasn't died out, either, but I expect it's receded.)

To me the classically marked stopping is realizing /ð/ as an alveolar [d] ─ I generally-unconsciously realize initial /θ ð/ as dental stops except in careful speech, but realizing /ð/ as an alveolar stop is characteristically basilectal, and I tend to not do it in contexts such as work even when I do things like inflict horrible elisions on my Indian coworkers and expect them to somehow understand.

[Sol717]

popular speech often has [fɪft], [sɪkst] for fifth, sixth

The forms of these ordinals with /t/ are historically more original (going back to Old English fīfta, siexta; the First Folio employs the spellings <fift, sixt>, though the spelling evidence indicates that the present analogical forms with <-th> were already present in Late Middle English.

intrusive [θ] in height was already widespread in 1919

Again, this is a archaism with roots in OE (Anglian hēhþu, hēþ), though the prevalence of heighth in the modern dialects is probably due to analogy rather than failure of the ME change [xθ] > [xt]. However, widespread dialectal drouth likely directly continues drūgaþ more directly; in many dialects [ɣ] was lost before the syncope and devoicing that would allow it to participate in the aforementioned change could occur (in fact, I would consider the standard form with [t] somewhat puzzling, though its genuineness is vouched for by dialectal [drʊft]).

[Space60]

• "in the popular dialects" [θ] and [ð] are sometimes completely replaced by [t] and [d]: think [tɪŋk], that [dæt] — i've heard [dæt] before, but never [tɪŋk], at least not from a u.s. native speaker

I think "popular" here might mean "AAVE". TH-stopping exists sporadically on this side of the pond too, most notably Irish English where the dental think [t̪ɪŋk] contrasts with the alveolar tink [tɪŋk].

Stops in place of [θð] were by no means limited to AAVE in the early 20th century— it was stereotypical lower class or big-city pronunciation. Immigration from Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America undoubtedly reinforced it.

(I'm sure it hasn't died out, either, but I expect it's receded.)

Th-stopping in AAVE occurs in words like "that" sounding like "dat", but not in words in "think" which doesn't typically sound like "tink" in AAVE. "Tink" for "think" is more a feature of Caribbean English varieties.

[Space60]

Th-stopping was traditionally common in New York City. Combined with the traditional pronunciation of the NURSE vowel there, it led to "toity-toid street" for "33rd Street".