The names Ian/Iain and Ann are distinct here, but were not distinct in mid-west USA when we visited. And Ann was said in almost 2 syllables.
Here respectively EE-yun, EYE-yun, and Æn
So was dog: daw-awg. It's a very short awe sound here.
Very short here also. One syllable.
Diaper is dye-per here.
Similar.
Though a purchase will also refer to getting a good hold with your hand on something: "I had a good purchase on it, but it let go anyway." not "anyhow".
Purchase meaning grip is all but dead here. I've heard anyhow, anyway, and anyways.
Garage. Which is a guh-RAJ. The j sounds like as in Jim or gym.
I am wondering what different English speakers call their parents, and grandparents? My parents were Mommy and Daddy. Grandparents were Grandmother last name, ( I had two) and Granddaddy. (I had only one.) I continued to use these names even as an adult. It was a Southern thing I am guessing that I did not shorten to Mom and Dad.
Mom and Dad
Maternal: Grandma and Gramps
Paternal: Grandma Lastname
Birth father's parents: Grandma and Grandpa Lastname.
Mum and Dad.
Grandma and Grandpa
Nanny and Nappa (my brother's attempt at Grandpa)
Husband and I are known as Nan & Pa
Omah & Opah (daughter's Dutch in laws)
Nancy (my sister whose surname starts with the letter C)
Honey (this lady always called hr children Honey and they transferred the name to her)
I had mum and dad and nan and grandad (southeast England with northern parents, I wonder if nan is a working class northernism in my case). My children called us mummy and daddy til their teens then mum and dad.
Must tell my cousins in Cork that - making sure I'm wearing body-armour first, of course
Well, they can react how they like, but it's an objective fact that 'by Jesus' is a phrase in English, not Irish. The Irish form of Jesus is Íosa, for staters.
Must tell my cousins in Cork that - making sure I'm wearing body-armour first, of course
Well, they can react how they like, but it's an objective fact that 'by Jesus' is a phrase in English, not Irish. The Irish form of Jesus is Íosa, for staters.
In this thread of all places, one should be way more careful than you are being in distinguishing English to indicate place of origin, English as a language (spoken in both England and Ireland and lots of other places), Irish as a language, Irish as an indication of origin...
I've honestly no idea if you're trying to argue that somehow a phrase that's in English must have originated in England and in English English rather than Irish English, nor on what basis you're doing so.
Because saying that a phrase is in the English language and therefore can't have originated anywhere but in England is, in this thread of all places, patently nonsensical.
Or whether you're trying to argue that an English phrase can't be pronounced in a specifically Irish way, which is equally wrong.
The fact that a phoneme is absent affects the way that Irish people pronounce English. Just as the presence/absence of various phonemes in your own variety of English will affect any language you try to learn and pronounce. This pretty much is what an accent is. As an Australian I'm pretty much cursed with dipthongs I have to fight against when speaking anything else. Irish people tend not to pronounce /z/, and it doesn't matter what language they're pronouncing, the same thing will tend to happen.
I just realized that the HTML codes for phonetic symbols haven't changed since I were a lad, hence, ə, and other delicacies. It's the future!
I actually had no idea there were HTML codes for phonetic symbols - this is handy. Easier than copying and pasting each symbol from its Wikipedia page, which is what I have done in the past. Though I also tend to use regular alphabet letters here as an approximation for pronunciation, as I'm not sure to what extent people are familiar with IPA, and I don't want to be exclusionary. But I guess everyone knows the schwa. Here is a web page I just found of HTML codes for phonetic symbols. Is it just me or does the schwa symbol, ə, look quite a bit smaller than the English text?
Yes, I got fed up with copying symbols, but your point about being exclusionary is a good one. I think I will give both, phonetic and an ordinary version, e.g., /ka:t/, or cart.
Here's one for Karl, ɬ, or the Welsh lateral voiceless fricative. There is a Zulu voiced lateral fricative, ɮ, so study phonetics and see the world.
I just realized that the HTML codes for phonetic symbols haven't changed since I were a lad, hence, ə, and other delicacies. It's the future!
I actually had no idea there were HTML codes for phonetic symbols - this is handy. Easier than copying and pasting each symbol from its Wikipedia page, which is what I have done in the past. Though I also tend to use regular alphabet letters here as an approximation for pronunciation, as I'm not sure to what extent people are familiar with IPA, and I don't want to be exclusionary. But I guess everyone knows the schwa. Here is a web page I just found of HTML codes for phonetic symbols. Is it just me or does the schwa symbol, ə, look quite a bit smaller than the English text?
Yes, I got fed up with copying symbols, but your point about being exclusionary is a good one. I think I will give both, phonetic and an ordinary version, e.g., /ka:t/, or cart.
Here's one for Karl, ɬ, or the Welsh lateral voiceless fricative. There is a Zulu voiced lateral fricative, ɮ, so study phonetics and see the world.
I remember as a kid noticing how people pronounced ll in Welsh names as tons of people in Lancs went to Llandudno, and Pwllheli for hols. Most people said it as l, of course, but I think Pwllheli is very Welsh speaking. [pʊɬˈhɛlɪ] There used to be a big Butlins there?
When I were a lad, people in this part of Lancs (ie Liverpool) pronounced those two towns as Clandidno and Puckheli which may reflect a ghost of the once large Welsh speaking population here ( and accounts, at least in part, for our distinctive accent).
And there was a big Butlins in Pwllheli, not sure if it's still open.
This is the Wiki phonetic transcription of Betws-y-Coed, [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], so w is given as ʊ, which I think is a slack u sound, and the y as schwa. The ɨ I don't know.
The places that gives most non-Welsh real problems are Bwlch, Ynysbwl and Machynlleth
If we could get people to grasp that Welsh has more vowel symbols than English (a, e, i, o, u, w, y) rather than lacking vowels (as commonly claimed) they'd struggle a lot less.
This is the Wiki phonetic transcription of Betws-y-Coed, [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], so w is given as ʊ, which I think is a slack u sound, and the y as schwa. The ɨ I don't know.
ʊ is like the 'oo' in 'book' (in an RP accent).
ɨ is like saying 'ee' with your tongue further back. From the Wikipedia page on this sound, it is like the vowel in 'lip' with a South African accent, or like the vowel in 'rude' in a South East English accent.
Here is the Wikipedia page on IPA, so you see where all the sounds are in the mouth, and each sound has its own Wikipedia page.
Parental names: Mummy and Daddy then Mum and Dad.
Grandma and Grandad, Nana and Daddad. Daddad died when I was three, so don’t know if this might have changed as I grew up.
This is the Wiki phonetic transcription of Betws-y-Coed, [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], so w is given as ʊ, which I think is a slack u sound, and the y as schwa. The ɨ I don't know.
ʊ is like the 'oo' in 'book' (in an RP accent).
ɨ is like saying 'ee' with your tongue further back. From the Wikipedia page on this sound, it is like the vowel in 'lip' with a South African accent, or like the vowel in 'rude' in a South East English accent.
Here is the Wikipedia page on IPA, so you see where all the sounds are in the mouth, and each sound has its own Wikipedia page.
Though 'coid' would be perfectly acceptable. The ɨ only occurs in Northern Welsh dialects, being replaced by i elsewhere.
For me also, in the south of England, mummy and daddy, then mum and dad.
My grandparents from the south of England were Granny and Grandad. They started writing 'Gran and Grandad' on cards we got older, but we still always said Granny and Grandad. My grandmother from the north of England (who was widowed long before I was born) was Nana. She also started writing 'Nan' in cards as we got older, but we still said Nana. We didn't see our grandparents often though. Maybe if they'd lived nearby and we'd often seen them, we might have started saying Gran and Nan.
This is the Wiki phonetic transcription of Betws-y-Coed, [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], so w is given as ʊ, which I think is a slack u sound, and the y as schwa. The ɨ I don't know.
ʊ is like the 'oo' in 'book' (in an RP accent).
ɨ is like saying 'ee' with your tongue further back. From the Wikipedia page on this sound, it is like the vowel in 'lip' with a South African accent, or like the vowel in 'rude' in a South East English accent.
Here is the Wikipedia page on IPA, so you see where all the sounds are in the mouth, and each sound has its own Wikipedia page.
Though 'coid' would be perfectly acceptable. The ɨ only occurs in Northern Welsh dialects, being replaced by i elsewhere.
Ah, okay. I don't know Welsh, other than a few random words, and the national anthem, though now I think of it, the woodland chapel at St Beuno's is Capel-y-Coed, and is pronounced capel uh coid. Though generally by English people with RP accents, so I never know how accurate it is!
The places that gives most non-Welsh real problems are Bwlch, Ynysbwl and Machynlleth
If we could get people to grasp that Welsh has more vowel symbols than English (a, e, i, o, u, w, y) rather than lacking vowels (as commonly claimed) they'd struggle a lot less.
I actually was taught as a child (in the US) that the vowels are “a, e, i, o and u, and sometimes y and sometimes w.”
Y is frequently used as a vowel in English, especially at the end of words, such as “frequently.” And the sound represented by w in English is really more or less a very quickly pronounced “oo” sound. (Likewise, y as at the beginning of “yes” is more or less a very quickly pronounced “ee” sound.)
Indeed. They're semivowels. In English Y is indeed frequently a vowel, but people tend not to be taught that for some reason. W in English can't form a syllable without another vowel; in Welsh it can, hence bwlch, cwm, trwm, cwmwl and so on.
The places that gives most non-Welsh real problems are Bwlch, Ynysbwl and Machynlleth
If we could get people to grasp that Welsh has more vowel symbols than English (a, e, i, o, u, w, y) rather than lacking vowels (as commonly claimed) they'd struggle a lot less.
Reminds me of the comedian Mark Steele berating the good citizens of Shrewsbury because they can't decide between themselves exactly how to pronounce the name of their town, while less than ten miles away across the Welsh border there were place names with two dozen consecutive consonants that nobody had any trouble pronouncing.
I had mum and dad and nan and grandad (southeast England with northern parents, I wonder if nan is a working class northernism in my case). My children called us mummy and daddy til their teens then mum and dad.
Just to tie two threads together 'nan' meaning grandmother as used in some parts of England probably derives from the (north) Welsh word for grandmother nain.
Just to tie two threads together 'nan' meaning grandmother as used in some parts of England probably derives from the (north) Welsh word for grandmother nain.
How interesting , thank you. Both my parents’ families were Lancashire mill workers.
We’re Grandma and Grandpa, my parents were Mum and Dad (Granny and Grandad to our children) and my grandparents were Nanny and Granfer (the other set both died before I was born, sadly).
Just to tie two threads together 'nan' meaning grandmother as used in some parts of England probably derives from the (north) Welsh word for grandmother nain.
“Nanny,” “Nanna” and “Nan” are fairly common names for grandmothers around here (American South). My sister is “Nan” to her grandkids. (Her husband is “Pop.”)
I am Granny and my husband is Grandad. The other GPs are Grandma and Grandpa, but thanks to various remarriages, my grandchildren also have Nanny and Pops, and also Oma and Opa, who are their cousin’s grandparents. Anyone else, their step dad’s Mum, for example, is called by their first name.
I called my parents Mum and Dad, and Mum’s Mum was Nan. She lived in the south of England. I also had Grandma and Grandad.
When my daughter is cross with me, or exasperated, she calls me Mother. Otherwise it is Mum, but her children still call her Mummy at 15 and 12.
I never heard that <w> was sometimes a vowel. But it makes sense
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
I never heard that <w> was sometimes a vowel. But it makes sense
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
You're thinking about spelling rather than the sounds themselves. There doesn't need to be a written 'w' for a 'w' to be present. Say out loud 'Who is this?' There is a 'w' sound between 'who' and 'is'. Say the 'w' sound slowly. You are putting your lips together, as in an 'oo' sound. That is why it is a vowel - it's an oo sound, but the lips are close enough together to make a consonant sound when switching to another vowel.
Same with 'y.' It is an ee sound, but the tongue is so close to the top of the mouth that a consonant sound is formed when switching to another vowel. Say out loud 'He is here.' Between 'he' and 'is', there is a 'y' sound. It comes from the ee switching to another vowel.
More generally I'm kind of fascinated by the anglicization of place names. Once you're some distance from English-speaking lands, you have to be a large enough place to get your name changed.
Having learned Danish, I now sometimes have to consciously make myself say "Copenhagen" instead of "København" so that people know where the hell I'm talking about. I don't think I have the same issue with any other city or town in Denmark because they were never significant enough to the English consciousness to be anglicized. There's just mispronunciations, such as my own former mangling of Odense as "oh-DENSE".
I like watching the reverse process, where American (and other) placenames get recast into Vietnamese. Thus "Ca-Li," "Chi-Ca" [go], San Lui, Tes-ak (Texas), and streets like "MAhK-noe-leeeer" (Magnolia) and MAHK-kuh-tuh (MacArthur).
I never heard that <w> was sometimes a vowel. But it makes sense
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
H, w and y are sometimes vowels, mostly consonants. As in ah-ha! In the first use, it's a vowel, but a consonant in the second. It's one of Mother Nature's little tricks. Same with Hey you!
I never heard that <w> was sometimes a vowel. But it makes sense
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
H, w and y are sometimes vowels, mostly consonants. As in ah-ha! In the first use, it's a vowel, but a consonant in the second.
I would have said that in the first it's silent. It adds nothing that "a" doesn't already have.
I never heard that <w> was sometimes a vowel. But it makes sense
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
H, w and y are sometimes vowels, mostly consonants. As in ah-ha! In the first use, it's a vowel, but a consonant in the second.
I would have said that in the first it's silent. It adds nothing that "a" doesn't already have.
I never heard that <w> was sometimes a vowel. But it makes sense
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
H, w and y are sometimes vowels, mostly consonants. As in ah-ha! In the first use, it's a vowel, but a consonant in the second.
I would have said that in the first it's silent. It adds nothing that "a" doesn't already have.
Exactly!
So it's not a vowel, any more than the "t" in "merlot" is a vowel.
Comments
Here respectively EE-yun, EYE-yun, and Æn
Very short here also. One syllable.
Similar.
Purchase meaning grip is all but dead here. I've heard anyhow, anyway, and anyways.
Same.
Mom and Dad
Maternal: Grandma and Gramps
Paternal: Grandma Lastname
Birth father's parents: Grandma and Grandpa Lastname.
Grandma and Grandpa
Nanny and Nappa (my brother's attempt at Grandpa)
Husband and I are known as Nan & Pa
Omah & Opah (daughter's Dutch in laws)
Nancy (my sister whose surname starts with the letter C)
Honey (this lady always called hr children Honey and they transferred the name to her)
Well, they can react how they like, but it's an objective fact that 'by Jesus' is a phrase in English, not Irish. The Irish form of Jesus is Íosa, for staters.
In this thread of all places, one should be way more careful than you are being in distinguishing English to indicate place of origin, English as a language (spoken in both England and Ireland and lots of other places), Irish as a language, Irish as an indication of origin...
I've honestly no idea if you're trying to argue that somehow a phrase that's in English must have originated in England and in English English rather than Irish English, nor on what basis you're doing so.
Because saying that a phrase is in the English language and therefore can't have originated anywhere but in England is, in this thread of all places, patently nonsensical.
Or whether you're trying to argue that an English phrase can't be pronounced in a specifically Irish way, which is equally wrong.
The fact that a phoneme is absent affects the way that Irish people pronounce English. Just as the presence/absence of various phonemes in your own variety of English will affect any language you try to learn and pronounce. This pretty much is what an accent is. As an Australian I'm pretty much cursed with dipthongs I have to fight against when speaking anything else. Irish people tend not to pronounce /z/, and it doesn't matter what language they're pronouncing, the same thing will tend to happen.
* my maiden name - Grandad Bain died before I was born
** short for McWhirter, my mum's maiden name
Yes, I got fed up with copying symbols, but your point about being exclusionary is a good one. I think I will give both, phonetic and an ordinary version, e.g., /ka:t/, or cart.
Here's one for Karl, ɬ, or the Welsh lateral voiceless fricative. There is a Zulu voiced lateral fricative, ɮ, so study phonetics and see the world.
By English I mean the English language, whether the Irish, US, UK or any other dialect groups.
By Irish I mean the Irish language, Gaeilge.
I thought that was standard usage.
Dw i'n gwybod am 'll' yn y Gymraeg, dysgwr ydw i.
(I know about the 'll' in Welsh; I'm a learner.)
And there was a big Butlins in Pwllheli, not sure if it's still open.
Ouch!
Argh!
If people could just get their head round how 'y'/'yr' is pronounced so much pain could be avoided.
Is it a schwa sound?
It is. I was once asked by a fellow walker if he was on the right path for Why Garn. He was indeed on a route which would take him over Y Garn...
If we could get people to grasp that Welsh has more vowel symbols than English (a, e, i, o, u, w, y) rather than lacking vowels (as commonly claimed) they'd struggle a lot less.
ʊ is like the 'oo' in 'book' (in an RP accent).
ɨ is like saying 'ee' with your tongue further back. From the Wikipedia page on this sound, it is like the vowel in 'lip' with a South African accent, or like the vowel in 'rude' in a South East English accent.
Here is the Wikipedia page on IPA, so you see where all the sounds are in the mouth, and each sound has its own Wikipedia page.
Grandma and Grandad, Nana and Daddad. Daddad died when I was three, so don’t know if this might have changed as I grew up.
Though 'coid' would be perfectly acceptable. The ɨ only occurs in Northern Welsh dialects, being replaced by i elsewhere.
My grandparents from the south of England were Granny and Grandad. They started writing 'Gran and Grandad' on cards we got older, but we still always said Granny and Grandad. My grandmother from the north of England (who was widowed long before I was born) was Nana. She also started writing 'Nan' in cards as we got older, but we still said Nana. We didn't see our grandparents often though. Maybe if they'd lived nearby and we'd often seen them, we might have started saying Gran and Nan.
Ah, okay. I don't know Welsh, other than a few random words, and the national anthem, though now I think of it, the woodland chapel at St Beuno's is Capel-y-Coed, and is pronounced capel uh coid. Though generally by English people with RP accents, so I never know how accurate it is!
Y is frequently used as a vowel in English, especially at the end of words, such as “frequently.” And the sound represented by w in English is really more or less a very quickly pronounced “oo” sound. (Likewise, y as at the beginning of “yes” is more or less a very quickly pronounced “ee” sound.)
Reminds me of the comedian Mark Steele berating the good citizens of Shrewsbury because they can't decide between themselves exactly how to pronounce the name of their town, while less than ten miles away across the Welsh border there were place names with two dozen consecutive consonants that nobody had any trouble pronouncing.
Just to tie two threads together 'nan' meaning grandmother as used in some parts of England probably derives from the (north) Welsh word for grandmother nain.
I called my parents Mum and Dad, and Mum’s Mum was Nan. She lived in the south of England. I also had Grandma and Grandad.
When my daughter is cross with me, or exasperated, she calls me Mother. Otherwise it is Mum, but her children still call her Mummy at 15 and 12.
The letter <w> is usually a consonant. It is a vowel only when it teams up with an <a>, <e>, or <o> to spell a single sound—as in the words draw, few, and low. So the letter <w> is a vowel only in the two-letter teams <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>
You're thinking about spelling rather than the sounds themselves. There doesn't need to be a written 'w' for a 'w' to be present. Say out loud 'Who is this?' There is a 'w' sound between 'who' and 'is'. Say the 'w' sound slowly. You are putting your lips together, as in an 'oo' sound. That is why it is a vowel - it's an oo sound, but the lips are close enough together to make a consonant sound when switching to another vowel.
Same with 'y.' It is an ee sound, but the tongue is so close to the top of the mouth that a consonant sound is formed when switching to another vowel. Say out loud 'He is here.' Between 'he' and 'is', there is a 'y' sound. It comes from the ee switching to another vowel.
...and then having an English staff member on a train repeatedly try to correct me and tell me I'd been to Conway.
I wasn't having it. I was staying at a Welsh guesthouse with a lovely woman who was from Conwy, thanks very much.
(who was also giving me a crash course in Welsh, though I remember about 4 words)
Having learned Danish, I now sometimes have to consciously make myself say "Copenhagen" instead of "København" so that people know where the hell I'm talking about. I don't think I have the same issue with any other city or town in Denmark because they were never significant enough to the English consciousness to be anglicized. There's just mispronunciations, such as my own former mangling of Odense as "oh-DENSE".
H, w and y are sometimes vowels, mostly consonants. As in ah-ha! In the first use, it's a vowel, but a consonant in the second. It's one of Mother Nature's little tricks. Same with Hey you!
I would have said that in the first it's silent. It adds nothing that "a" doesn't already have.
Exactly!
So it's not a vowel, any more than the "t" in "merlot" is a vowel.
What, you mean it sounds like "father" where the "a" does the same thing on its own just fine?
Or indeed, the second half of "ah-ha"?
I think you should quit while you're only slightly behind...