Idiolectal pronunciations

[PVER•PVERVM•AMAT]

Is it at all common to have an idiolectal pronunciation of a word not in accordance with any dialect? /rəˈnesɑːns/ [rəˈnɛsaːns] is how I pronounce 'renaissance', though most of my pronunciations are fairly standard BrE (as standard as rhoticity and monophthongal GOAT and FACE can be in BrE, that is).

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Is it at all common to have an idiolectal pronunciation of a word not in accordance with any dialect? /rəˈnesɑːns/ [rəˈnɛsaːns] is how I pronounce 'renaissance', though most of my pronunciations are fairly standard BrE (as standard as rhoticity and monophthongal GOAT and FACE can be in BrE, that is).

I for for one pronounce "ea" like /e/ and not /i/.

[linguoboy]

Is it at all common to have an idiolectal pronunciation of a word not in accordance with any dialect?

It's not unusual with words that you know primarily or solely from reading.

[finlay]

I still mentally pronounce cache as /keiS/

[linguoboy]

I still mentally pronounce cache as /keiS/

One of my persistent problems is pronouncing row as /row/ in all cases, since the meaning "argument, disturbance" simply isn't found in my dialect. Whenever it has this meaning, I force myself to reread the sentence with the proper pronunciation, but it just doesn't stick.

[Zaarin]

Is it at all common to have an idiolectal pronunciation of a word not in accordance with any dialect? /rəˈnesɑːns/ [rəˈnɛsaːns] is how I pronounce 'renaissance', though most of my pronunciations are fairly standard BrE (as standard as rhoticity and monophthongal GOAT and FACE can be in BrE, that is).

That could actually be confusing since /rəˈnesɑːns/ is actually a word, albeit spelled differently. Granted the only use I can think of is the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem (which I love).

[KathTheDragon]

/rəˈnesɑːns/ is actually a word, albeit spelled differently.

What are you talking about? That's not the pronunciation.

[Zaarin]

/rəˈnesɑːns/ is actually a word, albeit spelled differently.

What are you talking about? That's not the pronunciation.

Close enough: /rəˈneɪsəns/ and /rəˈnesɑːns/ aren't really all that far apart.

[Rui]

I think I have a few unique pronunciations (or certainly extremely rare one) due to the fact that my dialect is rhotic but contains many vowel qualities found in NY English but not General American. The first that comes to mind is "water" which I pronounce, approximately, [wɔəɾɚ], where GenAm has something closer to [wɔɾɚ] or even [wɑɾɚ], and NY English would probably have a higher stressed vowel, [oə] or [ʊə], and a non-rhotic final vowel

[----]

I still mentally pronounce cache as /keiS/

One of my persistent problems is pronouncing row as /row/ in all cases, since the meaning "argument, disturbance" simply isn't found in my dialect. Whenever it has this meaning, I force myself to reread the sentence with the proper pronunciation, but it just doesn't stick.

This is the first time I've ever heard there's a difference.


Apparently the way I say "pecan" is idiosyncratic at least in this region. I've always said it as /pɪˈkæn/ but everyone else says it /pɪˈkɑn/.

[Kereb]

Is it at all common to have an idiolectal pronunciation of a word not in accordance with any dialect?

among users of this board? oh my no. we had one user who proudly told us how he pronounced both the m and n in "column", another who invented an entire accent of his own to speak his native swedish in, and an L2 german learner who had decided to pronounce "ich" as [iɬ] (neither of those symbols is a mistake)

i think a good rule is that your pronunciations are only "idiolectal" if you don't think they are.

fuckin cut it out

[Richard W]

Is it at all common to have an idiolectal pronunciation of a word not in accordance with any dialect.

It's not rare - I have a few idiosyncrasies of my own in words I learnt before I was learning words by reading. I don't believe the claim that a child will naturally achieve perfect command of a language.

[Zaarin]

I somehow picked up pronouncing "either" with /aɪ/ even though I come from a dialect that pronounces it /i/ and my parents pronounce it with /i/. No idea how I picked it up, because I wasn't intentionally putting it on.

[----]

I pronounce 'either' both ways depending on some mystery factors I can't describe right now.

[jal]

I pronounce 'either' both ways depending on some mystery factors I can't describe right now.

I always have [ai] in "either ... or", but probably mostly have [i:] sentence final ("I don't know either"). I always use [ai] in "neither".

In my native Dutch, I purposely pronounce "melange" as [meˈlɑŋə] instead of the standard faux-French [meˈlɑ̃ːʒ(ə)], much to the chagrine of my wife.


JAL

[Nortaneous]

Was talking to a Slovenian on Skype the other day and he kept mentioning [rɛˈnesəns] Italy.

I have z > d in "isn't" and "wasn't" but that's a dialect thing -- my father has it too. He also pronounces 'on' as [uə̯n], with a vowel that AFAIK he doesn't have anywhere else.

[finlay]

I pronounce 'either' both ways depending on some mystery factors I can't describe right now.

Yeah, I've seen no evidence that this is governed by dialect or accent rather than random personal preference...

[spidermilk]

I say "Thay Ngyew" for thank you sometimes. "Ngy" is actually the onset of the word "you", and I stress "thank" hard but I still leave off the coda. Although that might be normal for the hillbilly town I live in. I haven't paid that much attention.

[vokzhen]

I say "Thay Ngyew" for thank you sometimes. "Ngy" is actually the onset of the word "you", and I stress "thank" hard but I still leave off the coda. Although that might be normal for the hillbilly town I live in. I haven't paid that much attention.

I have a feeling set phrases like that are especially prone to idiolect variation. My thank you, when it's just a social habit (getting change or a receipt, or as I first noticed, having my student ID scanned for food), is often voiceless except the [ɪu] of "you" is mostly breathy, and sometimes there's a little catch of breathiness in the "thank"-vowel, which appears to be a mid-centralized, (voicelessly) nasalized /ɛ/ instead of the nasalized [eə] I have in careful pronunciation, and the most prominent part of the entire phrase is the noisy, almost ɕ-like voiceless /j/. But I have a feeling this kind of variation is so common that it's not all that useful to talk about, like the thousand different ways people with the same name all manage to turn their signature into different illegible scribbles.

[finlay]

My thank you has a bit of an unusual American twang to it sometimes. I wouldn't put too much stock in it. Also be wary of analyzing your own speech in such detail; it can lead to you overreporting erroneous details.

Anyway it's the same here: eg arigatou gozaimasu often becomes something like rigaazaimasu...everyone seems to have their own way of abbreviating it. Or I've heard irasshaimase shortened to shamse.

[Imralu]

I used to pronounce "strength" and "length" with /ɪ/. I always thought that's what everyone else was saying too. It sounds like that to me.

Also, "onion" to me was always /ˈʌŋjən/.

I've brought all of these pronunciations in line with the normal ones but it was hard work. When I worked in a bottle shop, I sometimes accidentally found myself saying "med-stringth" instead of "mid-strength" because I'd "fix" the wrong vowel.

[linguoboy]

I used to pronounce "strength" and "length" with /ɪ/. I always thought that's what everyone else was saying too. It sounds like that to me.

I do, too, but that's expected since I'm pin-pen merged. I didn't really notice this until I learned German and was struck by how different streng sounded. That taught me to make the distinction, which I do exceptionally now. For instance, I make a point of calling people named Ben who speak non-merged dialects [ˈbɛ̃n] and not [ˈbɪ̃n] (just as I use a different pronunciation for Barrys, Carols, and Larrys who are not marry-merry merged).

Last night I noticed how high my nucleus was in pants. I don't normally tense/break æ's (except in jest), but this might constitute an exception for some reason.

[Imralu]

I used to pronounce "strength" and "length" with /ɪ/. I always thought that's what everyone else was saying too. It sounds like that to me.

I do, too, but that's expected since I'm pin-pen merged. I didn't really notice this until I learned German and was struck by how different streng sounded. That taught me to make the distinction, which I do exceptionally now. For instance, I make a point of calling people named Ben who speak non-merged dialects [ˈbɛ̃n] and not [ˈbɪ̃n] (just as I use a different pronunciation for Barrys, Carols, and Larrys who are not marry-merry merged)./quote]
I remember my grade seven teacher, who was from New Zealand, saying one day "Bin, ken you put thet un the bun, please?"

[CaesarVincens]

I have the pen-pin merger and engma tensing so I have something like /streɪŋθ/ and /leɪŋθ/

[Αυτοβοτα]

I thought I was weird for saying /ˈʌŋjɨn/ for "onion". I think I say /streɪŋθ/ and /leɪŋθ/ for "strength" and "length". Also, /eɪg/ for "egg" and /kɛtʃ/ for "catch". I used to say /ˈpikæn/ for "pecan", but now I say /pɨˈkɑn/. I've been trying to reverse the g-raising, so instead, /ɛg/ for "egg", but the raising before eng is too far gone (and is "engma" just another way of saying "eng"?).

In some cases I merge /ɑ/ to /ʌ/, at least after /w/. There's the usual suspect, /wʌt/ for "what", but I also say /wʌʃ/ for "wash".

And different from everyone I know, I say /ʊ/ instead of /u/ in the cases of /hʊvz/ "hooves", /ɻʊf/ "roof", and /ɻʊt/ "root".