Talk:Open front unrounded vowel

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I'm very certain that the Danish example is wrong here. To the best of my knowledge bade is pronounced with an [æ], not an [a].

Peter Isotalo 19:21, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Heger's Sprog & lyd is difficult to use due to the fact that the alternative Dania transcription system is used, but by comparing vowel charts and phoneme exampels (pg. 86, pg. 139), it is clear that this is not an [a] but an [æ].
Peter Isotalo 22:19, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Examples

The Canadian line is confusing; it almost seems to be saying that stop and bat are both pronounced with [a] in Canadian English. I'm aware of the Canadian Shift leading to [a] in words like bat (in those parts of Canada which show the Shift) but surely these varieties don't also have [a] in stop; I thought they had something more like [ɒ].--JHJ 16:29, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I've always thought the Canadian vowel in stop was an unrounded low back vowel /ɑ/ not a rounded low back vowel /ɒ/, which is a feature of RP. I'm pretty sure CaE uses a similar, if not the same vowel used in GA. Mark 13:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
There's a vowel shift called the Canadian Shift - see the draft chapter 11 of Labov et al's Atlas of North American English, p128. The symbol [ɒ] for the relevant vowel is used there. However, since it doesn't seem to be [a] (except maybe in Newfoundland, based on the red dots on Map 13.1 in the draft Chapter 13 of the ANAE), whether it's [ɒ] or [ɑ] isn't really relevant to whether it belongs on this page.--JHJ 16:53, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, is the Hungarian example right? Short <a> in Hungarian seems to be usually transcribed [ɒ] (see Hungarian phonology), while long <á> is [aː].--JHJ 16:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I added that [a] occurs in the Boston accent. I'm from Massachusetts, and it was actually the example of the Boston accent that taught me what sound [a] represented. --68.160.39.155 06:48, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with example

From the article:

  • In GA this vowel occurs only as the first part of the diphthongs [aɪ], as in light [laɪt]; and [aʊ], as in how [haʊ]. However, in the Great Lakes region, this vowel occurs in words like stock as a result of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.

The problem is that the diphthong in "light" is [ʌɪ], not [aɪ]. Perhaps the example should be changed to "lied" ([laɪd]) instead? Tomertalk 23:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

GA doesn't have Canadian raising. Other than minute phonetic length differences, the vowels in GA light and lied are the same. AEuSoes1 08:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
In the western US, these are [ʌɪ] and [aɪ]. Don't know how different this is from GA. kwami 10:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
This isn't a matter of Canadian raising, it's a matter of the fact that before unvoiced obstruents, the diphthong [aɪ] is, in GA, pronounced [ʌɪ], not [aɪ]. As made clear in paragraph two of the Canadian raising affects both /ai/ and /au/. Regardless of what our article says about GA, if Tom Brokaw were to say [laɪt] instead of [lʌɪt], people would think he'd gone crazy, or was exhibiting some bizarre affectation. The difference in GA is not between [lʌɪt] and [laɪd], but between [lʌɪt] and [la:ɪd]. Canadian raising actually shortens the [ʌ] to [ə]. Believe me, there's a big difference between what I'm talking about and Canadian raising—call it "American raising" if you must, but it's definitely not Canadian raising, and my point remains that the example in the article is inaccurate. Tomertalk 22:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Well then change the example to lied or lie. AEuSoes1 23:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I speak something close to General American, and I don't pronounce light as [lʌɪt]. Some people in the South and Philadelphia might pronounce it that way though. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 00:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


Canadian raising of /aɪ/ (but not /aʊ/) is rampant throughout the US. Here in California, basically everyone I have recorded and measured for F1 and F2 have [ʌɪ] (but not [ʌʊ]) before voiceless consonants. I don't know if Canadian raising is more extreme for both diphthongs, but regardless, there is raising in the US, and not just near the Canadian border! --SameerKhan (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's California, not the Midwest (where I'm from). I don't really care much about it though, because it's not very noticeable.208.104.45.20 (talk) 07:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Canadian raising of /aɪ/ in the U.S. is an innovation, but it's increasingly common. Jack(Lumber) 16:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] #97 can't be the right entity code

There is no guarantee that &#97; will have an "umbrella" (not sure what the typographic term for the thing covering the top of the lowercase-a is called.) Isn't there an actual Unicode entity number for this "a" which doesn't depend on the default font? --James S. 17:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Please see Talk:Voiced bilabial plosive. --James S. 18:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ä?

What's with all the ä's? Shouldn't an IPA article contain stanrd IPA characters? 惑乱 分からん 10:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Granted, it's central. Sorry. 惑乱 分からん 11:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Distinguishing open and central low vowels

I changed "no language distinguishes" to "few languages distinguish" since my own dialect of Vietnamese actually distinguishes between these two. The absolute "no languag distinguishes" claim is uncited and, even in the absence of my counterevidence, impossible to prove.

18.238.6.5 20:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I think a better way of addressing the uncited nature of this information is to put {{fact}} after it. Altering the wording to fit a different understanding is not removing uncited material. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Italian transcriptions

When Italian words are given as examples (in these entries about the vowels in the IPA etc.), long vowels are sometimes transcribed as such, sometimes are not.

In Italian, vowel length is certainly not distinctive; nevertheless, to indicate it in transcriptions aimed e.g. at speakers of Germanic languages has been judged surely useful from a pedagogical point of view by Max Mangold (who transcribes Italian words with [ː] in his Aussprachewörterbuch).

Since these transcriptions are phonetic ([...]), not phonematic (/.../), the length mark MIGHT be used.

But the point is: for the sake of consistency, either always or never.

(In Italian, only the vowels that are at the same time 1) stressed, 2) at the end of the syllable, 3) not word-final are [phonetically] long; all the other vowels are [phonetically] short. Examples: cane [ˡka:.ne], gatto [ˡgat.to], perché [per.'ke].) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom Hope (talk • contribs)

Yes. Sorry for not signing.
Just a postscript: also John C. Wells transcribes Italian words with the length mark in his Longman pronunciation dictionary. Tom Hope 23:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
You ought to put that information in Italian phonology, which seems to already incorporate that in its transcription. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps, all right. But at any rate we should decide whether in these phonetic transcriptions – I mean, in the transcriptions of these entries about the vowels of the IPA – the length mark should be added or not.
Both choices are legitimate, but, for the sake of consistency, the length mark should be either always or never present. Tom Hope 16:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English

The English examples need to be revamped. At least in some of Canadian, Northern, Scottish, Jamaican, and Irish English, the "ash" may actually vary from [æ] to [ä]; in ScotE, it's often if not usually centralized; in IrE, CanE and NorthEngE, it may also be [æ] or [æ̞]; and many (if not most) General American speakers (at least those without the cot-caught merger) realize the LOT vowel as a central [ä]. Jack(Lumber) 16:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Jack, but it's hard to show all of that on the table. I also think that California could be added to the table although the vowel shift there isn't near as widespread as, say, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The California shift is also way more recent than the NCS, and it's not clear if it will become the dominant pattern or if it's just a Valley Girl thing. In Labov's ANAE (which makes no mention of the California shift), a speaker from Nevada has a Canadian-like ash (but no Canadian shift). There's no reason why the speech of Nevada should be any different than that of California--assuming that such a thing as a California dialect exists. And, to answer one of your earlier questions, if you find yourself fronting the cot/caught vowel at times, well, that's a good reason not to realize /æ/ as [a]... Jack(Lumber) 15:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I realize that I wouldn't ever merge the vowel of cat with the vowel of cot. I also realize that dialects don't care about state boundaries. Thanks anyway though. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 23:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)