Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2022 3:48 pm
As in 'chicken Kiev' - /ki:ef/. Apart from the final /f/, it's the old local pronunciation. Anglophone attempts at 'Kyiv' come out wrong, riming with 'sleeve'.
I hear this sometimes in other people with all right, often written in eye-dialect something like a'ight, not so much with already.
I associate a'ight strongly with AAVE. I don't have it in my idiolect, only awright (and awready). But elision of /l/ after /ɑ/ isn't unusual for me; it frequently occurs even in all in connected speech. (In fact, this may well be my default pronunciation.)Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:01 pmI hear this sometimes in other people with all right, often written in eye-dialect something like a'ight, not so much with already.
Is your "awr" in awright and awready homophonous with NORTH/FORCE, or is the vowel lower or less rounded than in NORTH/FORCE?Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:17 pmI associate a'ight strongly with AAVE. I don't have it in my idiolect, only awright (and awready). But elision of /l/ after /ɑ/ isn't unusual for me; it frequently occurs even in all in connected speech. (In fact, this may well be my default pronunciation.)Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:01 pmI hear this sometimes in other people with all right, often written in eye-dialect something like a'ight, not so much with already.
I find the /kiːv/ take on Kyiv a bit weird, which was partly why I was asking. I've been tending to say /ˈkiːɪv/, basically the traditional English pronunciation of Kiev but with the second vowel changed to KIT (and /v/ rather than /f/, but I think I already had that in Kiev, which is slightly surprising as I generally have /f/ in -ev and -ov Russian names).
/ɔ.ˈɹɛ.di/ and /ɔ.ˈɹait/, yes, with the /ɔ/ definitely different from the rhotacized version in NORTH/FORCE. It wouldn't normally occur within a single word like that, but it can occur across word boundaries, e.g. in "saw red".
I have the low back merger and so the vowel I use in "alright" and "already" is very different from NORTH/FORCE. And no, I don't have /l/ elision in either.Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:20 pmIs your "awr" in awright and awready homophonous with NORTH/FORCE, or is the vowel lower or less rounded than in NORTH/FORCE?Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:17 pmI associate a'ight strongly with AAVE. I don't have it in my idiolect, only awright (and awready). But elision of /l/ after /ɑ/ isn't unusual for me; it frequently occurs even in all in connected speech. (In fact, this may well be my default pronunciation.)Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:01 pm
I hear this sometimes in other people with all right, often written in eye-dialect something like a'ight, not so much with already.
I don't recall actually hearing a'ight in the wild, but I honestly don't have much contact with real undiluted AAVE rather than intermediate varieties (aside from when I worked in Black neighborhood in Milwaukee and would go down to the local Walgreens, and I knew it was real AAVE because I couldn't understand what I overheard customers speak there).Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:17 pmI associate a'ight strongly with AAVE. I don't have it in my idiolect, only awright (and awready). But elision of /l/ after /ɑ/ isn't unusual for me; it frequently occurs even in all in connected speech. (In fact, this may well be my default pronunciation.)Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:01 pmI hear this sometimes in other people with all right, often written in eye-dialect something like a'ight, not so much with already.
I once fairly frequently encountered it in younger Southeastern speakers in varieties influenced by AAVE, which I think the local variety here has been to an extent (though I didn't personally pick up on those features, having been told they were "incorrect").Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:52 pmI don't recall actually hearing a'ight in the wild, but I honestly don't have much contact with real undiluted AAVE rather than intermediate varieties (aside from when I worked in Black neighborhood in Milwaukee and would go down to the local Walgreens, and I knew it was real AAVE because I couldn't understand what I overheard customers speak there).Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:17 pmI associate a'ight strongly with AAVE. I don't have it in my idiolect, only awright (and awready). But elision of /l/ after /ɑ/ isn't unusual for me; it frequently occurs even in all in connected speech. (In fact, this may well be my default pronunciation.)Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:01 pm
I hear this sometimes in other people with all right, often written in eye-dialect something like a'ight, not so much with already.
It is interesting what people decide is "incorrect", since I have never heard of anything in the dialect here described as "incorrect", including features which are markedly non-standard (e.g. weak past participles ending in <-ought> being turned into hybridized strong ones by tacking on an <-en> afterwards, as in boughten); I highly suspect it has to do with social class and like myself.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:31 am I once fairly frequently encountered it in younger Southeastern speakers in varieties influenced by AAVE, which I think the local variety here has been to an extent (though I didn't personally pick up on those features, having been told they were "incorrect").
Yes, I expect there was some classism involved, and also simply a general idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly".Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 10:03 amIt is interesting what people decide is "incorrect", since I have never heard of anything in the dialect here described as "incorrect", including features which are markedly non-standard (e.g. weak past participles ending in <-ought> being turned into hybridized strong ones by tacking on an <-en> afterwards, as in boughten); I highly suspect it has to do with social class and like myself.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:31 am I once fairly frequently encountered it in younger Southeastern speakers in varieties influenced by AAVE, which I think the local variety here has been to an extent (though I didn't personally pick up on those features, having been told they were "incorrect").
I have never heard the idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly" here, even though I most definitely heard this as being the case in many other places. I suspect many people here are not even aware of not speaking Standard English in the first place, so there is no reason on their part to tell children speak "properly" in the first place.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am Yes, I expect there was some classism involved, and also simply a general idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly".
I would also guess it's probably because they perceived the local language as close enough to standard (and forms like boughten feel like they ought to exist, and could easily pass for archaisms), as opposed to that don't, y'all (both regionally frequent where I was growing up, though I never picked up the second one), and also ain't, and dangling at (I was also corrected out of using that), which carry undertones of "incorrectness" (my late grandmother objected to ain't being included in dictionaries, incidentally). From what I can remember, there was more emphasis on word choice and register than on pronunciation (the same grandmother's pronunciation was a very old-fashioned regional variety that was non-rhotic, however she spoke with very "standard" vocabulary and grammar).Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:26 amI have never heard the idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly" here, even though I most definitely heard this as being the case in many other places. I suspect many people here are not even aware of not speaking Standard English in the first place, so there is no reason on their part to tell children speak "properly" in the first place.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am Yes, I expect there was some classism involved, and also simply a general idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly".
That's part of it, I'm sure. But don't overlook the racism. It's no coincidence that many of the forms most widely castigated as "improper" are strongly associated with African-American speakers (whether speaking AAVE or just varieties influenced by it). A lot of linguistic hygiene is about not sounding like "those people" (whoever "those people" are in your particular corner of the world; growing up in St Louis, "those people" were (a) urban Blacks and (b) "hoosiers" (lower class Whites with recent rural origins)).Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:26 amI have never heard the idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly" here, even though I most definitely heard this as being the case in many other places. I suspect many people here are not even aware of not speaking Standard English in the first place, so there is no reason on their part to tell children speak "properly" in the first place.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am Yes, I expect there was some classism involved, and also simply a general idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly".
Oh I agree completely. While there is far less deprecation of the speech of rural White people here in Wisconsin than in some other parts of the US, AAVE has been thoroughly stomped out of the speech of Black people here in public outside of the inner city - even though I went to school with a good number of Black people who were bussed in from Milwaukee under the Chapter 220 program, they never spoke AAVE at school. This is why I had not heard real AAVE before I started working at a company whose offices happened to be smack dab in the middle of a Black neighborhood in Milwaukee.Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:50 pmThat's part of it, I'm sure. But don't overlook the racism. It's no coincidence that many of the forms most widely castigated as "improper" are strongly associated with African-American speakers (whether speaking AAVE or just varieties influenced by it). A lot of linguistic hygiene is about not sounding like "those people" (whoever "those people" are in your particular corner of the world; growing up in St Louis, "those people" were (a) urban Blacks and (b) "hoosiers" (lower class Whites with recent rural origins)).Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:26 amI have never heard the idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly" here, even though I most definitely heard this as being the case in many other places. I suspect many people here are not even aware of not speaking Standard English in the first place, so there is no reason on their part to tell children speak "properly" in the first place.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am Yes, I expect there was some classism involved, and also simply a general idea that children ought to be brought up speaking "properly".
It should be remembered that the South is also the origin of the concept of "white trash", where poor Whites were seen as little better than Blacks, i.e. classism was just as much a factor as racism in the South.Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:38 pm I had also begun pondering the fairly obvious racism as the conversation continued. A lot of the forms considered incorrect in Southern American English (and consequently that I was corrected out of adopting) do overlap with AAVE, presumably because they're strongly historically linked to one-another.