ZBB Census

[Lyhoko Leaci]

My answer for the fight could be misidentified as someone else with the way the cell borders are currently at...

Also my post has been modified in the language sector.

[Cathbad]

Age: 21
Gender: Male
Nationality: Slovene
Occupation: Student
Sexual Orientation: Not quite sure - probably heterosexual, or slightly bisexual; leaning strongly towards asexual, though.
Status: Single
Native Language: Slovene
Secondary Languages: English, German, Serbian (with some dabbling in Arabic and Turkish)
Languages I Want to Learn but Don't Have the Time: none.
Religion: none.
Politics: none.
Handedness: Right
Who Would Win in a Fist Fight Between Michael Dorn and a Zombie Benjamin Whorf?: BLW, with his SAE Linear Time Warp Special Ability!
Height: 174 cm
Shoe size: 44 European (large, I know!)

[TomHChappell]

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[Risla]

Mine merges wharf and worf and war and wore, but none of those other things.

/mir@r/ is really, really awkward to me.

[TomHChappell]

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[TomHChappell]

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[Bob Johnson]

I've heard [ˈmɪɹː] ([ˈmɪɹ.ɹ̩]? There's no audible break in between.) but not the short form. I can't speak to those people's phonemes. (I say /ˈmɪ.rər/ [ˈmɪ.ɹɚ])

I don't usefully differentiate wore/war -- the vowel quality is the same. I don't think I've ever had to say "wharf" before -- so I'm uncertain of its vowel -- but it's in the which/whale/whine camp, while Worf is in with witch/wail/wine. The others (and bore/bar) are all separate vowel qualities.

[TomHChappell]

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[finlay]

BTW @finlay I edited my post.

ok chill! i might edit it later if i can be bothered. I only put a separate column for home state because quite a few others gave two different states – you didn't, at the end of the day. We haven't yet had anyone crossing national borders, apparently.

I'm not even sure what to do with the data, anyway.

[Bob Johnson]

I don't usefully differentiate wore/war -- the vowel quality is the same.

I can't even figure out how to pronounce them so they'd sound the same.

Given a fairly reasonable assumption that we have the same vowel quality in tore/core/more/pore/yore/fore/bore/sore, it's that one for both. Having "war" rhyme with "tar" sounds like German to me (mispronounced with a w instead of a v of course).

As for my lect -- it's rather odd, and not really useful for your question. I grew up in Tennessee but that was 15 years ago; also my mother spent more time in Florida and Colorado than there (and her mother's family the Dakotas), and my father Arizona. I picked up the pin/pen merger, but that's about it. Since then I've piled on other distinctions from foreign languages that only confuse the picture further.

[alice]

Mine merges wharf and worf and war and wore, but none of those other things.

So you have a zero realisation of /f/?

[Risla]

Mine merges wharf and worf and war and wore, but none of those other things.

So you have a zero realisation of /f/?

ha ha.

"Mine merges [wharf and worf] and [war and wore], but none of those other things."

Better?

[finlay]

I don't usefully differentiate wore/war -- the vowel quality is the same.

I can't even figure out how to pronounce them so they'd sound the same.

Given a fairly reasonable assumption that we have the same vowel quality in tore/core/more/pore/yore/fore/bore/sore, it's that one for both. Having "war" rhyme with "tar" sounds like German to me (mispronounced with a w instead of a v of course).

I have /wor/ for wore versus /wɔr/ for war actually. It's rare not to have a merger (the NORTH-FORCE merger) there, however – only a few dialects don't have it.

I mean IMD it's sometimes present, even. /ɔr/ can merge and become /or/ but never the other way round. So I'd still say they're separate.

on closer inspection, tom is claiming that he has the START vowel in 'war', which i've never heard before.

[Risla]

I like how this thread degenerated into arguing about dialects three pages in.

[Bob Johnson]

I have /wor/ for wore versus /wɔr/ for war actually. It's rare not to have a merger (the NORTH-FORCE merger) there, however – only a few dialects don't have it.

Interesting -- I can get [ˈʍoʊ.ɚ] "whoa-er" but can't merge that down to one syllable without a lot of work. That means it's like my Mary/merry merger: I can get to [ˈmeɪ.ˈɹiː] "may ree"...

I like how this thread degenerated into arguing about dialects three pages in.

Welcome to the ZBB! ()

[Travis B.]

I don't usefully differentiate wore/war -- the vowel quality is the same.

I can't even figure out how to pronounce them so they'd sound the same.

Given a fairly reasonable assumption that we have the same vowel quality in tore/core/more/pore/yore/fore/bore/sore, it's that one for both. Having "war" rhyme with "tar" sounds like German to me (mispronounced with a w instead of a v of course).

I have /wor/ for wore versus /wɔr/ for war actually. It's rare not to have a merger (the NORTH-FORCE merger) there, however – only a few dialects don't have it.

I mean IMD it's sometimes present, even. /ɔr/ can merge and become /or/ but never the other way round. So I'd still say they're separate.

on closer inspection, tom is claiming that he has the START vowel in 'war', which i've never heard before.

I was strongly doubting that Tom, a Michigander from what I know, would lack the NORTH-FORCE merger, and even if he did lack it, I had no reason to believe that either of Whorf or Worf would be FORCE words rather than NORTH words in any English variety.

And yeah, having the START vowel in war is quite strange, especially for an North American English variety (whereas I somehow would not be all too surprised if some Anglic variety in the British Isles had it)...

[Travis B.]

BTW @finlay I edited my post.

Mine merges wharf and worf and war and wore, but none of those other things.
/mir@r/ is really, really awkward to me.

So, what is your native 'lect? Where and when did you learn to talk?

Likewise for @Travis B.; where did you learn to talk?

The inner suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Note that while this applies significantly to my pronunciation of mirror, in that this is apparently something found in parts of the Inland North and like, what I was saying about wharf/Whorf/Worf was a much more general comment about English as awhole.

In short, for what 'lects are "wore" and "war" merged?

Umm, all English varieties that I am aware of that are NORTH-FORCE-merged... including both General American and Received Pronunciation.

(Note that in both GA and RP, war and tar most certainly do not rhyme.)

[Travis B.]

In the English I am familiar with, wharf, Whorf, and Worf most definitely are homophones unless one is distinguishing /w/ from /ʍ/, something I do on occasion but which most certainly is not native to my dialect...

(Frankly, I would expect all three to be homophones in most North American English varieties, or for that matter, most English English varieties... Unless you distinguish /w/ from /ʍ/, I am not sure how the three are not homophones for you, especially considering you are a North American living in Michigan, not some speaker of some odd rural English English dialect.)

(The only thing I can think of here is that wharf has at some point in the variety you speak gotten hypercorrected to something equivalent to either /wɑːrf/ or /ʍɑːrf/...)

In all 'lects of English with which I am familiar the nuclear vowel of "Whorf" would match that of "wore" while the nuclear vowel of "wharf" would match that of "war". "Whorf" differs from "wharf" as "wore" differs from "war".
I don't believe it is hypercorrection, but I couldn't produce evidence one way or the other.
Does your 'lect merge "wore" and "war"?
If so, do you also merge "tore" and "tar"? "core" and "car"? "more" and "mar"? "pore" and "par"? "yore" and "yar"? "fore" and "far"?

Only wore and war, none of the others (note my comments above).

Likewise, in the English I am most familiar with personally, mirror indeed is /mɪr/ not /mɪrər/...

I knew that some 'lects have one-syllable /mIr/ instead of two-syllable /mIr@r/. But I don't know which ones.
What surprised me about this woman was that she seemed unaware there were any 'lects that had /mIr@r/ instead.

I myself am very used to /mɪr/, with /mɪrər/ subjectively seeming practically like a spelling pronunciation to me, and being quite a mouthful for me to actually try to pronounce.

[alice]

Mine merges wharf and worf and war and wore, but none of those other things.

So you have a zero realisation of /f/?

ha ha.

"Mine merges [wharf and worf] and [war and wore], but none of those other things."

Better?

(is enlightened)

[finlay]

I have /wor/ for wore versus /wɔr/ for war actually. It's rare not to have a merger (the NORTH-FORCE merger) there, however – only a few dialects don't have it.

Interesting -- I can get [ˈʍoʊ.ɚ] "whoa-er" but can't merge that down to one syllable without a lot of work. That means it's like my Mary/merry merger: I can get to [ˈmeɪ.ˈɹiː] "may ree"...

It's also worth noting in this case that I often have monophthongs for /o/ and /e/ – although again they vary because my accent's become a bit mixed. In this case they're always monophthongs because these are rhotic-coloured vowels or whatever the technical term for them is.

[Bob Johnson]

It's also worth noting in this case that I often have monophthongs for /o/ and /e/ – although again they vary because my accent's become a bit mixed. In this case they're always monophthongs because these are rhotic-coloured vowels or whatever the technical term for them is.

After I picked up the length distinction in Japanese, I noticed a plain short [o] with no [ʊ] invading my English in certain contexts that I haven't been able to work out to my satisfaction. For Japanese /e/ I'm still stuck with [eɪ] vs [ɛ], sadly.

And a better pair: whore [ˈhɔ˞] vs hoer [ˈhoʊ.ɚ].

[dunomapuka]

I've heard [ˈmɪɹː] ([ˈmɪɹ.ɹ̩]? There's no audible break in between.) but not the short form. I can't speak to those people's phonemes. (I say /ˈmɪ.rər/ [ˈmɪ.ɹɚ])

So do I; there's no break, it's hard to tell whether the intervocalic [ɹ] belongs in the coda of the stressed first syllable or in the onset of the unstressed second syllable. But there are clearly two syllables.

I don't usefully differentiate wore/war -- the vowel quality is the same.

I can't even figure out how to pronounce them so they'd sound the same.

Both as "wore." This is not a general /ar/ > /or/ change; it only happens after /w/. Honestly, I thought this happened in 17th century or something. Every single English speaker I've ever heard has this.


Also, pronouncing "mirror" as "meer" is somehow gross.

[makvas]

I was born in Arkansas and learned to talk in Texas mostly, just like THC. I have wore/war merged to [wɔɹ].

I would [mɪɹ] for <mirror> but I don't think <meer> is a word; if it's like <seer> though, it would be [mi.ɹ̩], so not a homophone. <mirror> is a homophone to <mere> though.

On a related note, I have NO FREAKING CLUE how to pronounce an alveolar [ɹ]. Mine is between palatal and velar (I suppose around where the tongue arch must be for [ɨ]). Any tips on pronouncing a "proper" [ɹ]? And I'm not even sure what rhoticized vowels are supposed to be.

[finlay]

I have something like [hoɻ] vs [həʊ.ɚ]~[həʊ.ə] – but as i say you probably shouldn't draw any conclusions from my accent about anyone else's because it's a bit of a mix between scottish and english. (Of course, I can pronounce the second in a scottish way; I think this is just the way I do it to draw the distinction or something, because there's got to be an offglide like [ʊ] or [w] to distinguish them. Also I don't know if the first isn't actually like [ho˞] – I've said before I don't like to do very close analysis on my own accent if I can help it. Because probably 90% of this paragraph is bollocks. It's definitely not [hɔ˞] though.)

[Bob Johnson]

Also I don't know if the first isn't actually like [ho˞] – I've said before I don't like to do very close analysis on my own accent if I can help it. Because probably 90% of this paragraph is bollocks. It's definitely not [hɔ˞] though.)

Yeah, I've been sloppy with the annotation because I can't decide where the line is between different articulations, different sounds, and different representations.

On a related note, I have NO FREAKING CLUE how to pronounce an alveolar [ɹ]. Mine is between palatal and velar (I suppose around where the tongue arch must be for [ɨ]). Any tips on pronouncing a "proper" [ɹ]? And I'm not even sure what rhoticized vowels are supposed to be.

That sounds like [ɻ], which is fairly normal. Myself, I've been wondering about that bunched R thing. People make it sound like choking yourself with your own tongue while gargling.. or Arabic ʿayn/ghayn, but harder.

Should we start a thread "All about R" over in L&L?