Zompist Bboard Again

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 10:10 am**

/ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/ wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 5:30 pm¹I notice that in non-careful speech I have an annoyingly strong tendency to drop the [ʁ] here.

Well, you're dropping the /r/ in "wurst" as well, so...

JAL

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 1:09 pm**

jal wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 10:10 am
/ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/ wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 5:30 pm¹I notice that in non-careful speech I have an annoyingly strong tendency to drop the [ʁ] here.
Well, you're dropping the /r/ in "wurst" as well, so...

I suspect rhotic English-speakers may have a bit of trouble telling apart [ʊɐ̯] and [ə].

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 4:01 pm**

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 1:09 pm
jal wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 10:10 am
/ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/ wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 5:30 pm¹I notice that in non-careful speech I have an annoyingly strong tendency to drop the [ʁ] here.
Well, you're dropping the /r/ in "wurst" as well, so...
I suspect rhotic English-speakers may have a bit of trouble telling apart [ʊɐ̯] and [ə].

I can pronounce the difference if I put my mind to it, but [ə] feels much more natural in my mouth and is what I find myself gravitating towards.

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 4:06 pm**

In the English here the loan-morpheme -wurst is simply merged with worst and pronounced rhotically with the NURSE vowel just like it.

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:34 pm**

How do you guys really pronounce Illinois and milk? I normally pronounce the former with DRESS, even though from paying attention to everyone around me it seems many people pronounce it with KIT as spelled (even though I was sure that the DRESS pronunciation was the 'correct' one for the dialect here before), and when speaking carefully I pronounce the latter with KIT, but it seems that if I don't pay attention to my own speech I actually pronounce it with DRESS (as I was already aware of my mother in particular pronouncing it).

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:35 pm**

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:34 pm How do you guys really pronounce Illinois and milk? I normally pronounce the former with DRESS

I don’t really have a native pronunciation of Illinois, but I’ve noticed this before in other words:

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:58 pm I asked because I have:

miracle [ˈme̞ɻʷɵkʰu]
illustrate [ˈe̞ɫəs̞t̞͡ʂʷæ͡ɪt]
irritate [ˈe̞ɻʷətˢæ͡ɪtˢ]

And I was wondering whether anyone else had that distinctive /ɪ/-lowering.

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:45 pm**

It seems that historical KIT before /l/ is unstable for me, because when I try to speak naturally I often pronounce it as something like [əɤ̯], but when I try to speak carefully it either merges with KIT before /l/ as [ɨɯ̯], as in milk or vanilla, or DRESS before /l/ as [ɜɤ̯], as in Illinois.

Edit: Note that this does not apply when a stressed vowel is follows by /l/ in final position; e.g. pill unambiguously has KIT and bell unambiguously has DRESS.

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2026 10:09 am**

Funny, "milk" with DRESS would sound a lot like the Dutch cognate "melk". (And yes, that "l" is subject to l-vocalization in everyday speech.)

JAL

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2026 2:41 pm**

"Illinois rhymes with Lois", goes the jingle we all learned at school¹.

¹This is not entirely correct.

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2026 9:57 pm**

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:34 pm How do you guys really pronounce Illinois and milk? I normally pronounce the former with DRESS, even though from paying attention to everyone around me it seems many people pronounce it with KIT as spelled (even though I was sure that the DRESS pronunciation was the 'correct' one for the dialect here before), and when speaking carefully I pronounce the latter with KIT, but it seems that if I don't pay attention to my own speech I actually pronounce it with DRESS (as I was already aware of my mother in particular pronouncing it).

I have [ɪ] in both.

However, my best friend, raised in the same suburb, says [mɛlk]. (Or maybe [mɛlq]. The k gets backed after an l.)

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2026 2:30 pm**

Milk in Scottish accents is typically /mʌlk/, with a strongly velarised /l/, a near-rhyme of sulk.

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2026 2:35 pm**

alice wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2026 2:30 pm Milk in Scottish accents is typically /mʌlk/, with a strongly velarised /l/, a near-rhyme of sulk.

Ah yes, the pesky Scottish /ɪ/, which has caused me trouble before;

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 21, 2025 8:20 am Today at the hardware store the man at the counter suggested that I buy a [dɾɐːw]. I expressed confusion, so he clarified that what he thought I should buy was a [dɾɐːw]. Eventually I just asked him to spell it out, and it clicked — the word he was saying was drill!

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2026 2:28 pm**

You remind me of when my beloved and I met some of your countrypersons many years ago on holiday, and they had no idea what a /fɑɹəm/ was; it's the usual Scottish pronciation of a /fæ:m/.

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2026 2:40 pm**

alice wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 2:28 pm You remind me of when my beloved and I met some of your countrypersons many years ago on holiday, and they had no idea what a /fɑɹəm/ was; it's the usual Scottish pronciation of a /fæ:m/.

Well, I’ve never heard of /fæːm/ being a valid English word before; presuming you mean farm, the usual Australian pronunciation is something like [fɐ̈ːm].

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2026 4:24 pm**

alice wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 2:28 pm You remind me of when my beloved and I met some of your countrypersons many years ago on holiday, and they had no idea what a /fɑɹəm/ was; it's the usual Scottish pronciation of a /fæ:m/.

Is /fæ:m/ how Scots perceive the AusE pronunciaton of farm, as bradrn says?

Posted: **Sat Aug 15, 2026 2:33 pm**

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 4:24 pm
alice wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 2:28 pm You remind me of when my beloved and I met some of your countrypersons many years ago on holiday, and they had no idea what a /fɑɹəm/ was; it's the usual Scottish pronciation of a /fæ:m/.
Is /fæ:m/ how Scots perceive the AusE pronunciaton of farm, as bradrn says?

If you take me as characteristic of "Scots", then yes

I should probably have used [broad phonetic] rather than /phonemic/ transcriptions there.

Posted: **Sat Aug 15, 2026 3:01 pm**

alice wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2026 2:33 pm
Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 4:24 pm
alice wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 2:28 pm You remind me of when my beloved and I met some of your countrypersons many years ago on holiday, and they had no idea what a /fɑɹəm/ was; it's the usual Scottish pronciation of a /fæ:m/.
Is /fæ:m/ how Scots perceive the AusE pronunciaton of farm, as bradrn says?
If you take me as characteristic of "Scots", then yes I should probably have used [broad phonetic] rather than /phonemic/ transcriptions there.

Ah! Of course, you’re TRAP–BATH unsplit. That makes sense now.

Posted: **Sun Aug 16, 2026 4:56 am**

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:34 pm How do you guys really pronounce Illinois and milk? I normally pronounce the former with DRESS, even though from paying attention to everyone around me it seems many people pronounce it with KIT as spelled (even though I was sure that the DRESS pronunciation was the 'correct' one for the dialect here before), and when speaking carefully I pronounce the latter with KIT, but it seems that if I don't pay attention to my own speech I actually pronounce it with DRESS (as I was already aware of my mother in particular pronouncing it).

Both with KIT.

The variation in milk seems to go back to Middle English, and the OE forms had eo.

Posted: **Sun Aug 16, 2026 5:05 am**

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2026 3:01 pm
alice wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2026 2:33 pm
Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 4:24 pm
Is /fæ:m/ how Scots perceive the AusE pronunciaton of farm, as bradrn says?
If you take me as characteristic of "Scots", then yes I should probably have used [broad phonetic] rather than /phonemic/ transcriptions there.
Ah! Of course, you’re TRAP–BATH unsplit. That makes sense now.

So am I, but I'm still not sure what /fæ:m/ is meant to mean.

Posted: **Sun Aug 16, 2026 5:15 am**

anteallach wrote: ↑Sun Aug 16, 2026 5:05 am
bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2026 3:01 pm
alice wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2026 2:33 pm

If you take me as characteristic of "Scots", then yes I should probably have used [broad phonetic] rather than /phonemic/ transcriptions there.
Ah! Of course, you’re TRAP–BATH unsplit. That makes sense now.
So am I, but I'm still not sure what /fæ:m/ is meant to mean.

Well, the vowel that I usually see transcribed as /æ/ is in Scottish English usually pronounced as something more like [ɐ]. (Unlike other unsplit varieties where it really is [æ].) So it makes sense that Australian [ɐː] might be heard by a Scot as their TRAP–BATH vowel and thus be transcribed as /æː/.

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