Monday, 28 February 2011
comparable niches
Comments on Friday’s blog somehow managed to segue into the pronunciation of the word niche and the matter of whether BrE is becoming Americanized (and whether therefore AmE is ‘destroying the language’).
Here you see the LPD entry for niche. My poll shows that the French-style pronunciation is now overwhelmingly preferred in BrE, while (as far as I know) remaining virtually unknown in AmE.
The OED comments
In one of my talks about pronunciation preference polls I show three slides to illustrate the point that the evidence is that — contrary to what many people suppose — in some cases change spreads from AmE to BrE,in other cases from BrE to AmE,while occasionally we find that both are moving in tandem.
(Sorry about the Comic Sans. This is a very old talk. I’ve moved on typographically since then.)
Here you see the LPD entry for niche. My poll shows that the French-style pronunciation is now overwhelmingly preferred in BrE, while (as far as I know) remaining virtually unknown in AmE.
The OED comments
N.E.D. (1907) gives only the pronunciation (nitʃ) /nɪtʃ/ and the pronunciation /niːʃ/ is apparently not recorded before this date. H. Michaelis & D. Jones Phonetic Dict. Eng. Lang. (1913), and all editions of D. Jones Eng. Pronouncing Dict. up to and including the fourteenth edition (1977) give /nɪtʃ/ as the typical pronunciation and /niːʃ/ as an alternative pronunciation. The fifteenth edition (1991) gives /niːʃ/ in British English and /nɪtʃ/ in U.S. English.So it’s BrE that’s done the innovating here.
In one of my talks about pronunciation preference polls I show three slides to illustrate the point that the evidence is that — contrary to what many people suppose — in some cases change spreads from AmE to BrE,in other cases from BrE to AmE,while occasionally we find that both are moving in tandem.
(Sorry about the Comic Sans. This is a very old talk. I’ve moved on typographically since then.)
Friday, 25 February 2011
homage
On Sky News yesterday Adam Boulton reported David Cameron as (metaphorically) paying ˈhɒmɑːʒ to various Middle Eastern rulers (ones still in power, that is). I wonder if this was just his fancy way of pronouncing the word homage. This word was borrowed from Old French into Middle English some eight hundred years ago and is usually pronounced ˈhɒmɪdʒ. Or was he consciously reborrowing the modern French equivalent, hommage? If the latter, then you would expect him to know that French h is silent. In French the word is pronounced ɔmaʒ.
As experts on French will tell you, words spelt with initial h- fall into two classes phonetically. Some have the so-called “h aspiré” (aspirated h), which is unpronounced as such, or might sometimes be realized as a glottal stop; but in any case it blocks liaison that would otherwise occur. Others have “h muet” (silent h), which is equally unpronounced but allows liaison. For what it’s worth, the one in hommage is h muet.
As is well known, English has restored an h-sound in the pronunciation of many French loanwords (e.g. habit, heritage, hospital), though not in all (not in heir, honest, hono(u)r, hour and their derivatives). For herb the h has been restored in BrE but not in AmE. In BrE hotel there are a few laggards who have not yet restored the h, though most speakers pronounce it (except of course those who drop h anyway). You’ll also know about humble and (h)ostler. Let’s not get into h in unstressed syllables (historical, heretical, hysterics).
An awkward case is the visibly French loanword hauteur. In French it’s otœʀ. In BrE it may be pronounced as in French, or more likely in some such halfway anglicized form as əʊˈtɜː. That’s what you’ll find in LPD and CPD, without any restoration of h. But I notice that ODP gives an alternative hɔːˈtɜː — I can’t say I’ve ever heard this myself. In AmE I think the h tends to be restored insofar as the word is used at all.
The problem with having no h-sound in hauteur is that it makes it a homophone of auteur. I suppose there might just about be a misunderstanding if one referred to the (h)auteur in a discussion of some cinéaste’s oeuvre. But then of course they’re homophones in French anyway.
If we wanted to anglicize hauteur really thoroughly, perhaps we ought to spell it haughteur (or perhaps haughture, attested in the sixteenth century), like its cognate haughty, where the h-sound has been firmly restored. The spelling with -gh- is nevertheless etymologically entirely unjustified, being attributed by the OED to the influence of caught, taught and perhaps high, height.
The OED’s take on the pronunciation of hauteur is a strange mixture of French and English (o is meant to be “as in French eau”, while œ is “as in boeuf”).
As experts on French will tell you, words spelt with initial h- fall into two classes phonetically. Some have the so-called “h aspiré” (aspirated h), which is unpronounced as such, or might sometimes be realized as a glottal stop; but in any case it blocks liaison that would otherwise occur. Others have “h muet” (silent h), which is equally unpronounced but allows liaison. For what it’s worth, the one in hommage is h muet.
As is well known, English has restored an h-sound in the pronunciation of many French loanwords (e.g. habit, heritage, hospital), though not in all (not in heir, honest, hono(u)r, hour and their derivatives). For herb the h has been restored in BrE but not in AmE. In BrE hotel there are a few laggards who have not yet restored the h, though most speakers pronounce it (except of course those who drop h anyway). You’ll also know about humble and (h)ostler. Let’s not get into h in unstressed syllables (historical, heretical, hysterics).
An awkward case is the visibly French loanword hauteur. In French it’s otœʀ. In BrE it may be pronounced as in French, or more likely in some such halfway anglicized form as əʊˈtɜː. That’s what you’ll find in LPD and CPD, without any restoration of h. But I notice that ODP gives an alternative hɔːˈtɜː — I can’t say I’ve ever heard this myself. In AmE I think the h tends to be restored insofar as the word is used at all.
The problem with having no h-sound in hauteur is that it makes it a homophone of auteur. I suppose there might just about be a misunderstanding if one referred to the (h)auteur in a discussion of some cinéaste’s oeuvre. But then of course they’re homophones in French anyway.
If we wanted to anglicize hauteur really thoroughly, perhaps we ought to spell it haughteur (or perhaps haughture, attested in the sixteenth century), like its cognate haughty, where the h-sound has been firmly restored. The spelling with -gh- is nevertheless etymologically entirely unjustified, being attributed by the OED to the influence of caught, taught and perhaps high, height.
The OED’s take on the pronunciation of hauteur is a strange mixture of French and English (o is meant to be “as in French eau”, while œ is “as in boeuf”).
Thursday, 24 February 2011
cavalla, cavally
There’s a village on the island of Montserrat called Cavalla Hill. It can be reached only along a particularly steep and narrow road, but is home to the largest remaining Methodist church on the island since the loss of Bethel to the volcano.
I have been struck by the fact that there is considerable variability among Montserratians concerning the pronunciation of the first word in this place name. Some call it kəˈvalə, which I suppose is what you would expect from its spelling (the double ll signalling stress on the preceding vowel, as in umbrella, vanilla).
But many others make the final vowel i, and I have the impression that this is the general popular form, used by those who know it mainly as a spoken rather than as a written name. Yet even this group are divided in two. Some people stress it on the penultimate, but others on the initial syllable. The majority, it seems to me, say ˈkavəli. Since I too heard the name spoken before I saw it written, I too tend to give it initial stress and final i.
I haven’t been able to find out where the name comes from. Most placenames in Montserrat are geographical descriptors (Little Bay, Lookout, Woodlands), religious names (St Peter’s, St John’s, Salem), transplanted British or Irish names (Plymouth, Kinsale, Olveston), or based on former estate owners’ names (Tuitts, Brades, Nixons). But Cavalla Hill doesn’t seem to fit in any of those categories.
Dictionaries and Wikipedia tell us that cavalla is the popular name of several species of fish, including Caranx hippos and Scomber scombrus, aka the horse-mackerel. Not being a fisherman, I have never heard this word in use and do not know how fishermen pronounce it.
Webster’s Collegiate, however, gives not only cavalla kəˈvælə for the name of the fish, but also a variant form cavally kəˈvæli. (It also reports that the etymology is Spanish caballa, from a Latin word for ‘mare’.)
The OED, which does not record the spelling cavalla at all, gives the word only as cavally kəˈvæli.
There is also a river in West Africa called the Cavalla or Cavally.
It is not clear why a hill in Montserrat should be called after a fish or after a West African river.
The main point of phonetic interest here is the alternation between final schwa and final i. It puts me in mind of the Grand Ole Opry (= opera). According to Wikipedia, the term opry is quite recent, though, having been coined in 1928 by a Texan broadcaster, George D. Hay.
Are there other English words in which final ə alternates with i? I suspect there are, but I can’t actually think of any.
I have been struck by the fact that there is considerable variability among Montserratians concerning the pronunciation of the first word in this place name. Some call it kəˈvalə, which I suppose is what you would expect from its spelling (the double ll signalling stress on the preceding vowel, as in umbrella, vanilla).
But many others make the final vowel i, and I have the impression that this is the general popular form, used by those who know it mainly as a spoken rather than as a written name. Yet even this group are divided in two. Some people stress it on the penultimate, but others on the initial syllable. The majority, it seems to me, say ˈkavəli. Since I too heard the name spoken before I saw it written, I too tend to give it initial stress and final i.
I haven’t been able to find out where the name comes from. Most placenames in Montserrat are geographical descriptors (Little Bay, Lookout, Woodlands), religious names (St Peter’s, St John’s, Salem), transplanted British or Irish names (Plymouth, Kinsale, Olveston), or based on former estate owners’ names (Tuitts, Brades, Nixons). But Cavalla Hill doesn’t seem to fit in any of those categories.
Dictionaries and Wikipedia tell us that cavalla is the popular name of several species of fish, including Caranx hippos and Scomber scombrus, aka the horse-mackerel. Not being a fisherman, I have never heard this word in use and do not know how fishermen pronounce it.
Webster’s Collegiate, however, gives not only cavalla kəˈvælə for the name of the fish, but also a variant form cavally kəˈvæli. (It also reports that the etymology is Spanish caballa, from a Latin word for ‘mare’.)
The OED, which does not record the spelling cavalla at all, gives the word only as cavally kəˈvæli.
There is also a river in West Africa called the Cavalla or Cavally.
It is not clear why a hill in Montserrat should be called after a fish or after a West African river.
The main point of phonetic interest here is the alternation between final schwa and final i. It puts me in mind of the Grand Ole Opry (= opera). According to Wikipedia, the term opry is quite recent, though, having been coined in 1928 by a Texan broadcaster, George D. Hay.
Are there other English words in which final ə alternates with i? I suspect there are, but I can’t actually think of any.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
mysteries of existence
Like other teachers of elementary phonetics to NS students, when teaching I would regularly set exercises in “doing transcription”. I would give the students a passage of English in ordinary spelling. Their task would be to convert it into phonetic transcription.
This is a valuable exercise for NSs as much as for NNSs. It familiarizes them with the phonetic symbols. It makes them conscious of the difference between spelling and pronunciation. It alerts them to the characteristics of connected speech as opposed to individual words in isolation.
Good students sail through this task. The weaker ones often find it remarkably difficult. I would frequently have to point out that write does not actually begin with a w-sound, nor looked end with a d-sound (still less a syllabic d̩). The first vowel in particular is not normally pronounced ɑː, and the second vowel in information is not ɔː. Orthography has a distressingly dazzling effect on the phonetically unsophisticated.
But setting and marking (AmE ‘grading’) transcription can also be valuable for the teacher. Early in my career I noticed some students transcribing exist as ɪkˈzɪst (and similarly with example, exhausted, exams etc). Since the usual pronunciation is ɪɡˈzɪst I would mark this wrong. (Initial e-or ə- rather than ɪ- is OK, of course, though you have to check that that’s what they genuinely say, not just spelling-driven.)
However some students protested: they really do pronounce the word as ɪkˈzɪst. I checked it out, and they appeared to be correct. I came to realize that some speakers in the southeast of England, at least, have an unexpected dissimilation of voicing in these words. Their kz in exist seems to be different both from the gz of eggs or big zits and from the ks of exceed.
Being now a fortis plosive, it is also a candidate for glottal reinforcement: ɪkʔˈzɪst.
Convinced now of their reality, I decided to include these variants in LPD. But no other dictionary seems to recognize their ɪkˈzɪstəns.
This is a valuable exercise for NSs as much as for NNSs. It familiarizes them with the phonetic symbols. It makes them conscious of the difference between spelling and pronunciation. It alerts them to the characteristics of connected speech as opposed to individual words in isolation.
Good students sail through this task. The weaker ones often find it remarkably difficult. I would frequently have to point out that write does not actually begin with a w-sound, nor looked end with a d-sound (still less a syllabic d̩). The first vowel in particular is not normally pronounced ɑː, and the second vowel in information is not ɔː. Orthography has a distressingly dazzling effect on the phonetically unsophisticated.
But setting and marking (AmE ‘grading’) transcription can also be valuable for the teacher. Early in my career I noticed some students transcribing exist as ɪkˈzɪst (and similarly with example, exhausted, exams etc). Since the usual pronunciation is ɪɡˈzɪst I would mark this wrong. (Initial e-or ə- rather than ɪ- is OK, of course, though you have to check that that’s what they genuinely say, not just spelling-driven.)
However some students protested: they really do pronounce the word as ɪkˈzɪst. I checked it out, and they appeared to be correct. I came to realize that some speakers in the southeast of England, at least, have an unexpected dissimilation of voicing in these words. Their kz in exist seems to be different both from the gz of eggs or big zits and from the ks of exceed.
Being now a fortis plosive, it is also a candidate for glottal reinforcement: ɪkʔˈzɪst.
Convinced now of their reality, I decided to include these variants in LPD. But no other dictionary seems to recognize their ɪkˈzɪstəns.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
whoa!
Ulrike Stange, who is doing some research on English interjections, wrote
I wonder if there is anything more to it than that.
I’m not aware that the slow-down interjection whoa! is pronounced with something that “does not sound like a BrE diphthong”. As far as I know, it is straightforwardly a homophone of woe, pronounced with the local GOAT vowel whatever it may be.
Other languages seem to use quite different interjections in this sense: French holà!, German brr!, Spanish ¡so!
As a child I learnt a nursery rhyme
The OED gives spellings and definitions that seem exactly right.
whoa wəʊ ‘a word of command to a horse or other draught-animal to stop or stand still’ (from 1843)
wow waʊ ‘now chiefly expressing astonishment or admiration’ (from 1892)
On the other hand the on-line Urban Dictionary offers further, alternative, definitions of whoa that make it a partial synonym of wow:
1. To express surprise (interj)
2. To express astonishment (interj)
So perhaps there are two possible ways of interpreting this cartoon.
When analysing the functions of wow! I came across sentences likeI repliedWow. Calm down.Wow. Take it easy.
I'm not a native speaker of English but I'm fairly sure that wow! is pronounced differently in these cases (rhyming with American go); it does not sound like a British English diphthong.
The dictionaries I checked only provide the usual pronunciation (rhyming with "cow"). I was wondering if they might be homographs, the "normal" wow! expressing admiration, etc. and the other one apprehension or something along these lines. However, no wow! with this function is listed in any of the dictionaries I consulted.
The interjection meaning “slow down!” and rhyming with (British or American) go is normally spelt “whoa!”.
Perhaps these are just spelling mistakes.
I wonder if there is anything more to it than that.
I’m not aware that the slow-down interjection whoa! is pronounced with something that “does not sound like a BrE diphthong”. As far as I know, it is straightforwardly a homophone of woe, pronounced with the local GOAT vowel whatever it may be.
Other languages seem to use quite different interjections in this sense: French holà!, German brr!, Spanish ¡so!
As a child I learnt a nursery rhyme
If I had a donkey that wouldn’t go(That’s the version I know. The internet offers a rival nursery rhyme that goes “…I'd put him in the barn and give him some corn, The best little donkey that ever was born!”)
would I beat him? Oh dear, no.
I’d say “Gee up, Neddy! Whoa!”
The OED gives spellings and definitions that seem exactly right.
whoa wəʊ ‘a word of command to a horse or other draught-animal to stop or stand still’ (from 1843)
wow waʊ ‘now chiefly expressing astonishment or admiration’ (from 1892)
On the other hand the on-line Urban Dictionary offers further, alternative, definitions of whoa that make it a partial synonym of wow:
1. To express surprise (interj)
2. To express astonishment (interj)
So perhaps there are two possible ways of interpreting this cartoon.
Monday, 21 February 2011
deaccented apposition
When you have two noun phrases in apposition, the usual treatment in English intonation is to accent both. If, as often, they are placed in separate intonation phrases, there is usually tone concord between the two (English Intonation, p. 85).
In another kind of apposition (or something similar), one of the elements is more like a title. In this case the two parts are usually placed within a single IP.
In yet a third type the second element is more or less redundant as far as information content is concerned. Unsurprisingly, in view of this, it is typically deaccented.
I was reminded of this type of apposition (or whatever) when reading the story “The Aunt and the Sluggard” in P.G. Wodehouse’s, My Man Jeeves, 1919 (free download on my Kindle).
Here, the construction the poet Johnnie is not like the poet Milton or the poet Keats. Johnnie is not the poet’s name. It means no more than ‘fellow, chap’, implying that the hearer must be familiar with the poet although the speaker can’t for the moment recall his name. And Johnnie is not accented: the ˈpoet Johnnie.
In this phrase I can see that NNSs might be misled both into accenting Johnnie and into imagining that Johnnie was the name of a poet.
But then Wodehouse is full of traps for the NNS. He writes in a particularly idiomatic way — and in a colloquial idiom that is no longer to be heard in contemporary English.
ˈLet me introˈduce you to my \colleague, | \Charles.
Oh, and ˈthis is \Mary, | a\nother colleague.
I’ve got ˈMr /Bun, | the /baker, | and ˈMrs \Plod, | the po\liceman’s wife.
Oh, and ˈthis is \Mary, | a\nother colleague.
I’ve got ˈMr /Bun, | the /baker, | and ˈMrs \Plod, | the po\liceman’s wife.
In another kind of apposition (or something similar), one of the elements is more like a title. In this case the two parts are usually placed within a single IP.
the ˈnovelist ˈMartin \Amis
the ˈsculptor ˈHenry \Moore
my ˈman \Jeeves (= my servant J.)
the ˈsculptor ˈHenry \Moore
my ˈman \Jeeves (= my servant J.)
In yet a third type the second element is more or less redundant as far as information content is concerned. Unsurprisingly, in view of this, it is typically deaccented.
I ˈcan’t ˈstand that \Thatcher woman.
ˈWhat’s the ˈname of that \writer chappie? (| The ˈone you were \talking about.)
ˈWho's this \Smith fellow?
ˈWhat’s the ˈname of that \writer chappie? (| The ˈone you were \talking about.)
ˈWho's this \Smith fellow?
I was reminded of this type of apposition (or whatever) when reading the story “The Aunt and the Sluggard” in P.G. Wodehouse’s, My Man Jeeves, 1919 (free download on my Kindle).
Jeeves is my man, you know. Officially he pulls in his weekly wages for pressing my clothes and all that sort of thing; but actually he’s more like what the poet Johnnie called some bird of his acquaintance who was apt to rally round him in times of need — a guide, don’t you know; philosopher, if I remember rightly, and — I rather fancy — friend. I rely on him at every turn.
Here, the construction the poet Johnnie is not like the poet Milton or the poet Keats. Johnnie is not the poet’s name. It means no more than ‘fellow, chap’, implying that the hearer must be familiar with the poet although the speaker can’t for the moment recall his name. And Johnnie is not accented: the ˈpoet Johnnie.
In this phrase I can see that NNSs might be misled both into accenting Johnnie and into imagining that Johnnie was the name of a poet.
But then Wodehouse is full of traps for the NNS. He writes in a particularly idiomatic way — and in a colloquial idiom that is no longer to be heard in contemporary English.
Friday, 18 February 2011
Wari’
From a universal typological perspective, we sort of expect vowel systems to be more or less symmetrical. There is a feeling of orderliness about the vowels of Latin, Spanish, Modern Greek, Japanese, and Swahili, with their 5-vowel system nicely balanced between front and back, high and low.
i u
e o
Adding a backness distinction between low vowels, æ vs ɑ, as in Farsi, and/or adding front rounded vowels y, ø, Finnish-style, does not disrupt the equilibrium. Nor does adding back unrounded vowels ɯ, ʌ, Korean-style.
Nor does a tense-lax distinction, pairing i with ɪ and u with ʊ as in English or German.
From this typological perspective English is however rather messy — particularly the types of English where historical monophthongs have developed into assorted diphthongs. (Yes, it’s GOAT that I’m thinking of particularly.) The Anglo-American NURSE vowel, ɜ or ɝ, doesn’t actually disrupt the balance, but from an international perspective is an extremely unusual type of strong vowel.
The prize for unbalanced vowel systems seems to go to Pacaás Novos, aka Wari’, an Amazonian language spoken near the Bolivia/Brazil border. It has four mid/high front vowels, but only one back vowel. More unusual still in Wari’ is one of the items to be found in the consonant system, namely the ‘dental affricate’ t͡ʙ̥, which consists of a dental stop plus a bilabial trill, together forming a single unit.
Dan Everett, co-author of a descriptive grammar of the language, says that the Wari’
(The above photo of a Wari’ man relaxing was taken by the anthropologist Beth Conklin.)
Sadly for us, though, younger speakers are reportedly simplifying their consonant system. Rather than articulate t͡ʙ̥ they prefer to use just the first part of the affricate, so reducing it to t.
a
Orderly 7-vowel systems like Italian add a further distinction of height, with ɛ and ɔ.Adding a backness distinction between low vowels, æ vs ɑ, as in Farsi, and/or adding front rounded vowels y, ø, Finnish-style, does not disrupt the equilibrium. Nor does adding back unrounded vowels ɯ, ʌ, Korean-style.
Nor does a tense-lax distinction, pairing i with ɪ and u with ʊ as in English or German.
From this typological perspective English is however rather messy — particularly the types of English where historical monophthongs have developed into assorted diphthongs. (Yes, it’s GOAT that I’m thinking of particularly.) The Anglo-American NURSE vowel, ɜ or ɝ, doesn’t actually disrupt the balance, but from an international perspective is an extremely unusual type of strong vowel.
The prize for unbalanced vowel systems seems to go to Pacaás Novos, aka Wari’, an Amazonian language spoken near the Bolivia/Brazil border. It has four mid/high front vowels, but only one back vowel. More unusual still in Wari’ is one of the items to be found in the consonant system, namely the ‘dental affricate’ t͡ʙ̥, which consists of a dental stop plus a bilabial trill, together forming a single unit.
Dan Everett, co-author of a descriptive grammar of the language, says that the Wari’
are a helpful, kind people who speak a groovy language.
(The above photo of a Wari’ man relaxing was taken by the anthropologist Beth Conklin.)
Sadly for us, though, younger speakers are reportedly simplifying their consonant system. Rather than articulate t͡ʙ̥ they prefer to use just the first part of the affricate, so reducing it to t.
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