Ridiculously small phonemic differences thread

[TaylorS]

Speaking of tone, I have noticed that along with English vowels preceding lenis/voiced consonants being longer than those preceding fortis/unvoiced consonants, there is a tone difference as well. So the vowel in "lift" has a high tone and "lived" has a low tone.

In Future English I have made this tone distinction phonemic by collapsing all coda fortis plosives to /ʔ/, and by de-voicing coda voiced fricatives.

[Seirios]

In my Mandarin speech (and my family's), /ar/ > [ᴀˤʴ] while /air//anr/ > [ɐ˞ɻ].

Edit: Now I'm pretty sure that the rhotic part of /ar/ includes both radical and postalveolar, not alveolar as shown by IPA. A previously mistaken IPA expression is fixed and labelled red.

All of the "alveolar" /ɹ/ means postalveolar /ɹ̠˔/, while [˞] means alveolar. This is purely due to display reasons.

And to be more ridiculously small, when preceded by /i/ or /u/, the radical part in /ar/ may be omitted.

[Nortaneous]

What's that one dialect of that one Caucasian language that contrasts pharyngeals and epiglottals?

[cntrational]

diphthongized, and no, I've only heard anecdotally of English dialects that maintain(ed) a difference between eː and eɪ. I doubt they still exist. Generally they are heard as equivalent, although it's a marker of various regional accents.

Well, my (Indian) English contrasts /eɪ/ and /eː/ -- but only in loanwords from Indian languages. [ɛɪ] is the usual realization of the former.

For the record, there's no /oʊ/ /oː/ constrast -- /oʊ/ is [oː].

[finlay]

That's different, though - i'm talking about maintaining an early modern or middle english distinction. I can't remember exactly, but I think it's something like tale as /te:l/ and tail as /teil/ - there are some accents in like yorkshire or norfolk that still keep the distinction...maybe.

[Pole, the]

In my Mandarin speech (and my family's), /ar/ > [ᴀˤʴ] while /air//anr/ > [ɐɻ].

What is [ᴀ]?

[cntrational]

In my Mandarin speech (and my family's), /ar/ > [ᴀˤʴ] while /air//anr/ > [ɐɻ].

What is [ᴀ]?

Commonly used in Sinitic linguistics to indicate a low central vowel. [ä] in IPA proper.

[Pole, the]

Ok, thanks.