Nancy Blackett wrote:For what it's worth, /wI.ki."pi.djæ/.
/æ/ in an unstressed syllable? Which British dialect is this?
Probably something influenced by (or a dialect of) Scots (as Scottish English in reality these days tends to form a gradual continuum off into Scots proper, or rather, what had once been historically called Scots now is more likely to be called Scottish English even if it has changed far less than the name change would imply). Scots dialects are kind of funny about their unstressed final vowels, commonly written -ae (which vary wildly from dialect to dialect rather than typically being reduced towards schwas as they generally do in English).
the ae is generally assumed to be [e], though, rather than [æ] - i think you're confusing visually similar letters...
also geoff doesn't really have a scottish accent, if my memory is anything to go by. it's been a few years.
Nancy Blackett wrote:For what it's worth, /wI.ki."pi.djæ/.
/æ/ in an unstressed syllable? Which British dialect is this?
Probably something influenced by (or a dialect of) Scots (as Scottish English in reality these days tends to form a gradual continuum off into Scots proper, or rather, what had once been historically called Scots now is more likely to be called Scottish English even if it has changed far less than the name change would imply). Scots dialects are kind of funny about their unstressed final vowels, commonly written -ae (which vary wildly from dialect to dialect rather than typically being reduced towards schwas as they generally do in English).
the ae is generally assumed to be [e], though, rather than [æ] - i think you're confusing visually similar letters...
also geoff doesn't really have a scottish accent, if my memory is anything to go by. it's been a few years.
I know it is stereotypically [e], but actually varies quite a bit in actual Scots dialects, from what I know (I wasn't confusing the ae with [æ] visually there), so I was just guessing off the top of my head that that could potentially be a factor.
I get constantly tired of always having to say "Yes, I know I don't have a strong or obvious Scottish accent". One (English) guy once described it as "RP with rhoticity", and I've had people think I'm from the West Country for the same reason.
finlay wrote:I get constantly tired of always having to say "Yes, I know I don't have a strong or obvious Scottish accent". One (English) guy once described it as "RP with rhoticity", and I've had people think I'm from the West Country for the same reason.
So phonologically more like RP than, say, Standard Scottish English then?
Who knows... I would probably call it SSE myself. It's kind of mixed though – eg I don't have a FOOT/GOOSE merger but I do have a TRAP/BATH/PALM merger. (in general)
The other thing is that I think that when people hear that I'm from Scotland they suddenly expect me to have a strong Glaswegian accent, which is very different from a mild Edinburgh accent.
Some people hear the Scottishness instantly, to be fair, although they tend to be a bit more clued-up on the differences. At the end of the day, it's not an accent I strive towards having, so it's no wonder my accent's gravitated away from it over the years...
(it's that and gayness – some people notice instantly and others need to be told.... which in this case I hate doing)
You take it a step further and actually voice your /k/ there? Heh. (While I do sometimes make it so that /g/ and /k/, or /b/ and /p/, are indistinguishable in these positions aside from vowel length, it is always in favor of merging to voiceless lenis realizations rather than to voiced ones.)
Yup, I voice it. There seems to be a consistent sound change here of /p k/ to in the same environment intervocalic flapping occurs.
You do maintain a contrast in these cases by contrasting /p/ from /b/ as versus [β] and /k/ from /ɡ/ as [ɡ] versus [ɣ], without any vowel length contrast, from what I remember you as having said, right?
You take it a step further and actually voice your /k/ there? Heh. (While I do sometimes make it so that /g/ and /k/, or /b/ and /p/, are indistinguishable in these positions aside from vowel length, it is always in favor of merging to voiceless lenis realizations rather than to voiced ones.)
Yup, I voice it. There seems to be a consistent sound change here of /p k/ to in the same environment intervocalic flapping occurs.
You do maintain a contrast in these cases by contrasting /p/ from /b/ as versus [β] and /k/ from /ɡ/ as [ɡ] versus [ɣ], without any vowel length contrast, from what I remember you as having said, right?
Yup.
This kind of thing is why we need better surveying of what is actually going on in NAE dialects rather than just the typical old Labovian vowel isogloss mapping alone...
Hmm. Haven't done more than scroll through the thread, but it looks like there's no predictable regional variation in the second vowel, except that [ə] seems to only occur there in America.
Travis B. wrote:This kind of thing is why we need better surveying of what is actually going on in NAE dialects rather than just the typical old Labovian vowel isogloss mapping alone...
At least your side of the Atlantic has "Labovian vowel isogloss mapping".
Nortaneous wrote:Someone bitched me out for having instead of [@] for the second vowel and I got curious.
whut
i'm genuinely surprised not more people have [wɪki] there, and at the amount of people who have [wɪkɪ] or [wɪkə]... I suppose it's because it's part of a compound though (it's thrown my own judgement into doubt, too...). How would you pronounce just the word "wiki" on its own?
Nortaneous wrote:Someone bitched me out for having instead of [@] for the second vowel and I got curious.
whut
i'm genuinely surprised not more people have [wɪki] there, and at the amount of people who have [wɪkɪ] or [wɪkə]... I suppose it's because it's part of a compound though (it's thrown my own judgement into doubt, too...). How would you pronounce just the word "wiki" on its own?
I have [wIkI"pidi@], but ["wIki].
agus tha mo chluasan eòlach air a’ mhac-talla fhathast / às dèidh dhomh dùsgadh
(mona nicleòid wagner, “fo shneachd”)
finlay wrote:i'm genuinely surprised not more people have [wɪki] there, and at the amount of people who have [wɪkɪ] or [wɪkə]... I suppose it's because it's part of a compound though (it's thrown my own judgement into doubt, too...). How would you pronounce just the word "wiki" on its own?
/ˈwɪki/ (i.e. wick-y not wicca) but /ˌwɪkəˈpiːdiə/. It's a stress-related effect, I think.
(Normally I'd do phonetics but guh not enough caffeine.)
At, casteda dus des ometh coisen at tusta o diédem thum čisbugan. Ai, thiosa če sane búem mos sil, ne?
Also, I broke all your metal ropes and used them to feed the cheeseburgers. Yes, today just keeps getting better, doesn't it?
Travis B. wrote:This kind of thing is why we need better surveying of what is actually going on in NAE dialects rather than just the typical old Labovian vowel isogloss mapping alone...
At least your side of the Atlantic has "Labovian vowel isogloss mapping".
It was my understanding that British dialects are fairly well documented compared to most American ones.
Travis B. wrote:This kind of thing is why we need better surveying of what is actually going on in NAE dialects rather than just the typical old Labovian vowel isogloss mapping alone...
At least your side of the Atlantic has "Labovian vowel isogloss mapping".
It was my understanding that British dialects are fairly well documented compared to most American ones.
Sort of. Traditional rural dialects are very well documented, thanks to the Survey of English Dialects, but you won't find many people in England who actually speak like that. (The survery was largely done in the 1950s, and they deliberately chose older working-class men who hadn't moved around much.)
There are a number of studies of specific local dialects (Scouse is quite well-documented, for example, and there's been quite a lot of study in the South-East) but I'm not aware of anything like Labov's Atlas of North American English. For example, I don't think we have anything newer on the BATH isogloss than what the SED says, and while that's probably still quite accurate in that case it'd be nice to have something more up-to-date.
As for Finlay's "wiki" question, for me it's a typical HAPPY word: [ɪ] before consonants, before vowels.
