In
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, many
vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowe ...
s affect only vowels followed by in
rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
distinctions and so fewer vowel
phonemes
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
occur before than in other positions of a word.
Overview
In rhotic dialects, is pronounced in most cases. In
General American English
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
(GA), is pronounced as an approximant or in most positions, but after some vowels, it is pronounced as
''r''-coloring. In
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...
, is traditionally pronounced as a flap or trill , and there are no ''r''-colored vowels.
In non-rhotic dialects like
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
(RP), historic is
elided
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
at the
end of a syllable, and if the preceding vowel is stressed, it undergoes
compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...
or
breaking (diphthongization). Thus, words that historically had often have
long vowels
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
or
centering diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s ending in a schwa , or a diphthong followed by a schwa.
* ''earth'': GA , RP
* ''here'': GA , RP
* ''fire'': GA , RP
In most English dialects, there are vowel shifts that affect only vowels before or vowels that were historically followed by . Vowel shifts before historical fall into two categories: mergers and splits. Mergers are more common and so most English dialects have fewer vowel distinctions before historical than in other positions of a word.
In many
North American dialects, there are ten or eleven stressed
monophthongs
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
; only five or six vowel (rarely seven) contrasts are possible before a preconsonantal and word-final (''beer, bear, burr, bar, bore, bor, boor''). Often, more contrasts exist if appears between vowels of different syllables. In some American dialects and in most native English dialects outside North America, for example, ''mirror'' and ''nearer'' do not
rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
, and some or all of ''marry'', ''merry'', and ''Mary'' are pronounced distinctly. (In North America, those distinctions are most likely to occur in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, some of Eastern New England (including
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
), and in conservative
Southern accents
''Southern Accents'' is the sixth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released on March 26, 1985, through MCA Records. The album's lead single, "Don't Come Around Here No More", co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, peaked at n ...
.) In many dialects, however, the number of contrasts in that position tends to be reduced, and the tendency seems to be towards further reduction. The difference in how the reductions have been manifested represents one of the greatest sources of cross-dialect variation.
Non-rhotic accents in many cases show mergers in the same positions as rhotic accents even though there is often no phoneme present. That results partly from mergers that occurred before the was lost and partly from later mergers of the centering diphthongs and long vowels that resulted from the loss of .
The phenomenon that occurs in many dialects of the United States is one of
tense–lax neutralization in which the normal English distinction between
tense and lax vowels is eliminated.
In some cases, the quality of a vowel before is different from the quality of the vowel elsewhere. For example, in some dialects of
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
, the quality of the vowel in ''more'' typically does not occur except before , and it is somewhere in between the vowels of ''maw'' and ''mow''. It is similar to the vowel of the latter word but without the
glide
Glide may refer to:
* Gliding flight, to fly without thrust
Computing
*Glide API, a 3D graphics interface
*Glide OS, a web desktop
*Glide (software), an instant video messenger
*Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schr ...
.
It is important to note, however, that different mergers occur in different dialects. Among United States accents, the Boston, Eastern New England and New York accents have the lowest degree of pre-rhotic merging. Some have observed that
rhotic North American accents are more likely to have such merging than non-rhotic accents, but that cannot be said of rhotic British accents like
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...
, which is firmly rhotic but has many varieties with the same vowel contrasts before as before any other consonant.
Mergers before intervocalic ''R''
Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before and so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare," "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere," "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for," and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second syllable of "letter". The mergers are typically resisted by non-rhotic North Americans and are largely absent in areas of the United States that are historically largely nonrhotic.
''Hurry''–''furry'' merger
The ''hurry''–''furry'' merger occurs when the vowel before intervocalic is merged with . That is particularly a feature in many dialects of
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
but not
New York City English
New York City English, or Metropolitan New York English, is a regional dialect of American English spoken by many people in New York City and much of its surrounding metropolitan area. It is described by sociolinguist William Labov as the most ...
,
Mid-Atlantic American English
Philadelphia English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, counties of northern Delaware (espec ...
,
older Southern American English, some speakers of
Eastern New England English
Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the 19th century, is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts. Features of this variety once spanned an eve ...
, and speakers of
Southeastern New England English. Speakers with the merger pronounce ''hurry'' to rhyme with ''furry'' and ''turret'' to rhyme with ''stir it''. To occur, the merger requires the
nurse mergers
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowe ...
to be in full effect, which is the case outside the British Isles. In Scotland, ''hurry'' is a perfect rhyme of ''furry'' , but there is no merger since the vowel has never developed because of the lack of nurse mergers. That means that , and can all occur before both intervocalic and coda and so ''fur'', ''fern'', and ''fir'' have distinct vowels: .
Dialects in England, Wales, and most others outside North America maintain the distinction between both sounds and so ''hurry'' and ''furry'' do not rhyme. However, in dialects without the
foot-strut split
Most dialects of modern English have two close back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like ''foot'', and the close back rounded vowel (realized as central in many dialects) found in words like ''goose''. The vowel ...
, ''hurry'' has an entirely different vowel: (in a number of those dialects, a
square-nurse merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vo ...
is in effect instead).
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
has a three-way merger between the first vowels in ''hurry'' and ''furry'' and the unstressed vowel in ''letters''. In Received Pronunciation, all of them have different sounds (, and , respectively), and some minimal pairs exist between unstressed and , such as ''foreword'' vs. ''forward'' . In General American, they collapse to , but in phonemic transcription, they can still be differentiated as and to facilitate comparisons with other accents. General American also often lacks a proper opposition between and , which makes minimal pairs such as ''unorthodoxy'' and ''an orthodoxy'' variably homophonous as . See the
strut–comma merger
Most dialects of modern English have two close back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like ''foot'', and the close back rounded vowel (realized as central in many dialects) found in words like ''goose''. The vowe ...
for more information.
In
New Zealand English
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, there is a consistent contrast between ''hurry'' and ''furry'', but the unstressed is lengthened to (phonetically ) in many positions, particularly in formal or slow speech and especially when it is spelled . Thus, ''boarded'' and ''bordered'' might be distinguished as and , which is homophonous in
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...
as and distinguished in Received Pronunciation as and , based on the length and the rounding of . The shift was caused by a complete phonemic merger of and , a
weak vowel merger
The close and mid-height front vowels of English (vowels of ''i'' and ''e'' type) have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect.
Developments involving long vowels
Until Great Vowel Shift
Middle English had a long ...
that was generalized to all environments.
''Mary''–''marry''–''merry'' merger
One notable merger of vowels before is the ''Mary''–''marry''–''merry'' merger, a merging of the vowels (as in the name ''
Carrie
Carrie may refer to:
People
* Carrie (name), a female given name and occasionally a surname
Places in the United States
* Carrie, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
* Carrie, Virginia, an unincorporated community
* Carrie Glacier, Olympic Nati ...
'' or the word ''marry'') and (as in ''
Kerry
Kerry or Kerri may refer to:
* Kerry (name), a given name and surname of Gaelic origin (including a list of people with the name)
Places
* Kerry, Queensland, Australia
* County Kerry, Ireland
** Kerry Airport, an international airport in Count ...
'' or ''merry'') with the historical (as in ''
Cary
Cary may refer to:
Places
;United States
* Cary, Illinois, part of the Chicago metropolitan area
* Cary, Indiana, part of the Indianapolis metropolitan area
* Cary, Miami County, Indiana
* Cary, Maine
* Cary, Mississippi
* Cary, North Carolina ...
'' or ''
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
'') whenever they are realized before intervocalic . No contrast exists before a final or preconsonantal , where merged with and with (see
nurse mergers
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowe ...
) centuries ago. The merger is fairly widespread and is complete or nearly complete in most varieties of North American English,
but it is rare in other varieties of English. The following variants are common in North America:
* The full ''Mary''–''marry''–''merry'' merger (also known, in this context, as the three-way merger) is found throughout much of the United States (particularly the Western and Central United States) and in all of Canada except Montreal. This is found in about 57% of American English speakers, according to a 2003 dialect survey.
[Dialect Survey](_blank)
* No merger, also known as a three-way contrast, exists in North America primarily in the Northeastern United States and is most clearly documented in the accents of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
; 17% of Americans have no merger.
In the
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
accent, the three-way contrast is preserved, but ''merry'' tends to be merged with ''Murray'', and ''ferry'' can likewise be a homophone of ''furry'' (see
''merry''–''Murray'' merger below). The three-way contrast is found in about 17% of American English speakers overall.
* The ''Mary''–''marry'' merger is found alone, with 16% of American English speakers overall, particularly in the Northeast.
* The ''Mary''–''merry'' merger is found alone among
Anglophones
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest languag ...
in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
and in the American South, with 9% of American English speakers overall, particularly in the East.
* The ''merry–marry'' merger is found alone rarely, with about 1% of American English speakers.
In accents without the merger, ''Mary'' has the ''a'' sound of ''mare'', ''marry'' has the "short ''a''" sound of ''mat'', and merry has the "short ''e''" sound of ''met''. In modern Received Pronunciation, they are pronounced as , , and ; in Australian English, as , , and ; in New York City English, as , , and ; and in Philadelphia English, the same as New York City except ''merry'' is . There is plenty of variance in the distribution of the merger, with expatriate communities of those speakers being formed all over the country.
The ''Mary''–''merry'' merger is possible in New Zealand, and the quality of the merged vowel is then (similar to in General American). However, in New Zealand, the vowel in ''Mary'' often merges with the vowel instead (see
near–square merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowe ...
), which before intervocalic may then merge with and so ''Mary'' (phonemically ) can be or instead. In all of those cases, there is a clear distinction between ''Mary'' and ''merry'' (regardless of how both are pronounced) and ''marry'' (with the vowel) on the other.
''Merry''–''Murray'' merger
The ''merry''–''Murray'' merger is a merger of and before . That is common in the
Philadelphia accent
Philadelphia English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, counties of northern Delaware (espec ...
, which does not usually have the ''marry''–''merry'' merger, but its "short a" , as in ''marry'', is a distinct unmerged class before . Therefore, ''merry'' and ''Murray'' are pronounced the same, but ''marry'' is pronounced differently.
''Mirror''–''nearer'' and mergers
The mergers of and (as in ''mirror'' and ''nearer'', or ''Sirius'' and ''serious'', respectively) and occur in North American English as a part of pre- laxing, together with
Mary–merry merger and the
horse–hoarse merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vow ...
in most dialects with the first two mergers. The phonetic outcome of the first merger is either a lax vowel , or a somewhat raised vowel that approaches the monophthongal allophone of : , often diphthongal as . In the case of the merger, it tends to approach the monophthongal variant of : .
The ''mirror''–''nearer'' merger is absent from traditional, local, or non-standard accents of the Southern and Eastern United States, where ''nearer'' is pronounced with a tense monophthong or a centering diphthong (phonemicized as or , depending on whether the accent is rhotic or not), whereas ''mirror'' has a lax monophthong .
In the case of the first merger, only a handful of minimal pairs (e.g. ''cirrus''–''serous'' and ''Sirius''–''serious'') illustrate the contrast, in addition to morphologically distinct pairs (e.g.''spirit''–''spear it''), all of which are rendered homophonous by the merger. Indeed, the amount of the words containing is itself low. No minimal pairs exist for the merger, due to the extreme scarcity of the sequence in dialects of English with the
foot–strut split
Most dialects of modern English have two close back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like ''foot'', and the close back rounded vowel (realized as central in many dialects) found in words like ''goose''. The vowe ...
(furthermore, the
hurry–furry merger that occurs in most varieties of North American English results in a merger of with , removing almost any trace of the historical vowel in this position). Instead, it is a simple replacement of one phoneme with another, so that the word ''tour'' is perceived to contain the vowel, rather than the vowel. However, this change may not hold where morpheme boundaries apply, allowing a qualitative distinction to be maintained between the stressed vowels in ''tourist'' (a fairly close back monophthong of variable height) on the one hand and ''two-wrist'' (a fully close monophthong in free variation with a narrow closing diphthong) on the other hand (cf. traditional RP ). The same applies to the ''mirror''–''nearer'' merger, which laxes the vowel in ''clearing'' but not in ''key ring'' , cf. RP . Certain words are pronounced as if they contained a morpheme boundary before , notably ''hero'' and ''zero'' .
Some words originally containing the sequence are merged with either (see
cure–force merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowe ...
) or, more rarely, (see
cure–nurse merger) instead of + .
The ''mirror''–''nearer'' and mergers are not to be confused with the ''fleece''–''near'' and ''goose''–''cure'' mergers that occur in some non-rhotic dialects before a sounded and which do not involve the lax vowels and .
Mergers of and
Words with a stressed before intervocalic in Received Pronunciation are treated differently in different varieties of
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
. As shown in the table below, in
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ( ...
, all of them are pronounced with , as in ''cord''. In the accents of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
,
southern New Jersey, and
the Carolinas
The Carolinas are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina, considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia to the southwest. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east.
Combining Nort ...
(and traditionally throughout the whole South), those words are pronounced by some with , as in ''card'' and so merge with historic prevocalic in words like ''starry''. In
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
, and the nearby parts
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, those words are pronounced with , like in Received Pronunciation. However, the sound is met with
hypercorrection
In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...
of and so still merges with the historic prevocalic in ''starry''.
On the other hand, the traditional
Eastern New England accents (famously those of
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
), the words are pronounced with , but is a free vowel because of the cot–caught merger. In that regard, it is the same as Canadian , rather than Received Pronunciation . Most of the rest of the United States (marked "
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
" in the table), however, has a distinctive mixed system. Most words are pronounced as in Canada, the five words in the left-hand column are typically pronounced with , and the East Coast regions are apparently slowly moving toward that system.
In accents with the
horse–hoarse merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vow ...
, also includes the historic in words such as ''glory'' and ''force''. When an accent also features the
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger or merger, formally known in linguistics as the low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in "cot" and "caught". "Cot" and "caug ...
, is typically analyzed as to avoid postulating a separate phoneme that occurs only before . Therefore, both ''cord'' and ''glory'' are considered to contain the phoneme in California, Canada, and elsewhere. Therefore, in accents with the horse–hoarse merger, and are different analyses of the same word ''cord'', and there may be little to no difference in the realization of the vowel.
In the varieties of Scottish English with the cot-caught merger, the vowel is pronounced towards the of ''caught'' and ''north''. It remains distinct from the of ''force'' and ''goat'' because of the lack of the horse-hoarse merger.
Even in the American East Coast without the split (Boston, New York City, Rhode Island, Philadelphia and some of the coastal South), some of the words in the original short-''o'' class often show influence from other American dialects and end up with anyway. For instance, some speakers from the Northeast pronounce ''Florida'', ''orange'', and ''horrible'' with but ''foreign'' and ''origin'' with . The list of words affected differs from dialect to dialect and occasionally from speaker to speaker, which is an example of sound change by
lexical diffusion Lexical diffusion is the hypothesis that a sound change is an abrupt change that spreads gradually across the words in a language to which it is applicable.
It contrasts with the Neogrammarian view that a sound change results from phonetically-cond ...
.
Mergers before historic postvocalic ''R''
/aʊr/–/aʊər/ merger
The
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
merger of the vowels with the spellings and affects all modern varieties of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and causes words like ''sour'' and ''hour'', which originally had one syllable, to have two syllables and so to rhyme with ''power''. In accents that lack the merger, ''sour'' has one syllable, and ''power'' has two syllables. Similar mergers also occur in which ''hire'' gains a syllable and so makes it pronounced like ''higher'', and ''coir'' gains a syllable and so makes it pronounced like ''coyer''.
''Card–cord'' merger
The ''card''–''cord'' merger, or ''cord''–''card'' merger, is a merger of
Early Modern English
Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...
with , which results in the
homophony
In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ou ...
of pairs like ''card''/''cord'', ''barn''/''born'' and ''far''/''for''. It is roughly similar to the
father–bother merger
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the ...
but before ''r''. The merger is found in some
Caribbean English
Caribbean English (CE, CarE) is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and Liberia, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana and Suriname on the coast of South America. Carib ...
accents, in some
West Country accents in England, and in some accents of
Southern American English
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by Wh ...
. Areas of the United States in which the merger is most common include
Central Texas,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, and
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, but it is not dominant even there and is rapidly disappearing. In the United States, dialects with the ''card''–''cord'' merger are some of the only ones without the
horse–hoarse merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vow ...
, and there is a well-documented correlation between them.
merger
In
Modern English, the reflexes of Early Modern English and are highly susceptible to
phonemic mergers with other vowels. Words belonging to that class are most commonly spelled with ''oor'', ''our'', ''ure'', or ''eur''. Examples include ''poor'', ''tour'', ''cure'', ''Europe'' (words such as ''moor'' ultimately from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''ō'' words). Wells refers to the class as the words after the keyword of the
lexical set
A lexical set is a group of words that all fall under a single category based on a single shared phonological feature.
A phoneme is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work ...
to which he assigns them.
In traditional
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
and
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
, words are pronounced with Received Pronunciation ( before a vowel) and General American . However, those pronunciations are being replaced by other pronunciations in many accents.
In
Southern England
Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes G ...
, words are often pronounced with and so ''moor'' is often pronounced , ''tour'' , and ''poor'' . The traditional form is much more common in Northern England. A similar merger is encountered in many varieties of
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
, whose prevailing pronunciations are and ⁓, depending on whether or not the accent is rhotic. For many speakers of American English, the historical merges with after palatal consonants, as in "cure," "sure," "pure," and "mature", or in other environments such as in "poor" and "moor."
In
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal A ...
and
New Zealand English
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, the centering
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
has practically disappeared and is replaced in some words by (a sequence of two separate
monophthongs
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
) and in others by (a long monophthong). The outcome that occurs in a particular word is not always predictable although, for example, ''pure'', ''cure'', and ''tour'' rhyme with ''fewer'' and have , and ''poor'', ''moor'', and ''sure'' rhyme with ''for'' and ''paw'' and have .
merger
In
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
, a merger in which words like ''fury'' merge to the sound of ''furry'' is common, especially after
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
and
palatoalveolar consonants and so ''sure'' is often pronounced , which is also a common single-word merger in American English in which the word ''sure'' is often . Also,
yod-dropping
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...
may apply, which yields pronunciations such as for ''pure''. Other pronunciations in the accents that merge ''cure'' and ''fir'' include ''pure'', ''curious'', ''bureau'' and ''mural''.
– merger
Varieties of
Southern American English
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by Wh ...
,
Midland American English
Midland American English is a regional dialect or super-dialect of American English, geographically lying between the traditionally-defined Northern United States, Northern and Southern United States. The boundaries of Midland American English a ...
and
High Tider
High Tider, Hoi Toider, or High Tide English is a dialect of American English spoken in very limited communities of the South Atlantic United States, particularly several small island and coastal townships in the rural North Carolina "Down East ...
English may merge words like ''fire'' and ''far'' or ''tired'' and ''tarred'' towards of the second words: . That results in a ''tire''–''tar'' merger, but ''tower'' is kept distinct.
–– merger
Some accents of southern
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
, including many types of Received Pronunciation and in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, have mergers of the vowels in words like ''tire'', ''tar'' (which already
merged
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
with , as in ''palm''), and ''tower''. Thus, the triphthong of ''tower'' merges with the of ''tire'' (both surface as diphthongal ) or with the of ''tar''. Some speakers merge all three sounds and so ''tower'', ''tire'', and ''tar'' are all pronounced .
''Horse–hoarse'' merger
The ''horse''–''hoarse'' merger, or merger, is the merger of the vowels and before historic , which makes word pairs like ''horse''–''hoarse'', ''for''–''four'', ''war''–''wore'', ''or''–''oar'', ''morning''–''mourning'' pronounced the same. Historically, the class belonged to the phoneme (as in contemporary Received Pronunciation ''lot''), but the class was (as in
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...
''go''), which is similar to the contrast between the short lax and the long tense in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
.
The merger now occurs in most varieties of English, but the phonemes were historically separate. In accents with the merger, ''horse'' and ''hoarse'' are pronounced , but in accents without the merger, ''hoarse'' is pronounced with a higher vowel, usually in
rhotic and in non-rhotic accents. Accents that have resisted the merger include most
Scottish,
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, and
older Southern American accents as well as some
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
,
modern Southern American,
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
,
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
, and
older Maine accents. Some American speakers retain the original length distinction (with being pronounced with a vowel that is as short as in Received Pronunciation) but merge the quality. Therefore, ''hoarse'' is pronounced longer than ''horse'' .
The distinction was once present in the speech of southern England, the
NORTH vowel being sounded as and the
FORCE vowel as the centring diphthong ;
for many speakers, however, as noted by
Henry Sweet
Henry Sweet (15 September 1845 – 30 April 1912) was an English philologist, phonetician and grammarian.''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', as hosted oencyclopedia.com/ref>
As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic lang ...
, this contrast had by 1890 become constricted to word-final positions in which the following word did not begin with a vowel ('horse' and 'hoarse' had thus become
homophonous
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...
, as did 'aurochs' and 'oar ox' but not 'morceau' and 'more so'). In his 1918 ''
Outline of English Phonetics'',
Daniel Jones describes the distinction as optional, but he still considers it to be frequently heard in 1962; the two vowels are differentiated in the first (1884–1928) and second (1989) editions of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' with the caveat that in most varieties of southern British pronunciation the two have become identical; no distinction is drawn in the third edition, as well as in most modern British dictionaries (''
Chambers
Chambers may refer to:
Places
Canada:
*Chambers Township, Ontario
United States:
*Chambers County, Alabama
* Chambers, Arizona, an unincorporated community in Apache County
* Chambers, Nebraska
* Chambers, West Virginia
* Chambers Township, Hol ...
'' being a notable exception). According to
John C. Wells
John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics.
Career
Wells ea ...
, the distinction is by now obsolete in RP.
In British English dialectology, prevocalic in accents that distinguish ''cot'' and ''caught'' is analyzed as + , not since the non-rhotic dialects that have maintained the distinction feature two vowels corresponding to historic before intervocalic : and –, both of which contrast with . If is considered to be the contemporary reflex of , the merger is incomplete in the intervocalic position (at least in Received Pronunciation) and so ''moral'' and ''oral'' do not rhyme: (''warring'', however, was once and is because it is derived from ''war'' ). Before the loss of rhoticity, ''moral'' and ''war'' had the same stressed vowel , and the latter was lengthened and raised and so merged with : , which gave rise to the three-way distinction between prevocalic , and as in ''moral'', ''warring'', and ''oral'' (excluding the marginal , which is restricted to
compound words
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...
) because of the derived forms such as ''warring'' (compare the
wholly-holy split
In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers. A number of these changes are specific to vowels which occur before .
Historical diphthongiz ...
, which results in creation of a separate phoneme before coda ). However, the change did not affect all derived forms, such as ''warrior'' .
The distinction between intervocalic and , both of which are distinct from as in ''starry'', is stable and affects also
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...
,
New Zealand English
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, and
South African English
South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans.
History
British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding op ...
and most regional British English varieties. In Scottish English, which merges ''cot'' with ''caught'', ''moral'', ''war'', and ''warring'' belong to the class (– + ): (as does ''warrior'' ), but ''oral'', ''bore'' and ''boring'' feature (which is + ): . The same applies to the conservative General American varieties that preserve the – distinction.
Some regional non-rhotic British English retains the – distinction (with being distinct from + prevocalic , as in Received Pronunciation), as is the case in, for example,
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
(excluding Cardiff) and some
West Midlands English
West Midlands English is a group of dialects of the English language native to the English West Midlands.
County accents
Certain areas of the West Midlands are stereotyped as having stronger accents than others, Dudley in the Black Countr ...
.
is typically the same as , and varies. The areas of Wales that make the distinction merge it with the monophthongal variety of : (those accents lack the
toe–tow merger
English diphthongs have undergone many changes since the Old and Middle English periods. The sound changes discussed here involved at least one phoneme which historically was a diphthong.
Old English
Old English diphthongs could be short or ...
), but in the West Midlands, it corresponds to + : or a separate phoneme: . The words belonging to each set vary to an extent region to region, and speakers from Port Talbot tend to use , instead of the etymologically correct , in ''forceps'', ''fortress'', ''important'' and ''importance''.
The
Cockney English
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...
distinction between and is not related to the – distinction, which does not exist in that dialect. Instead, the
split gives rise to the phonemic distinction between and in the preconsonantal position, as in ''board'' and ''bored'' as well as ''pause'' and ''paws'' .
In the United States, the merger is widespread everywhere but is quite recent in some parts of the country. For example, fieldwork performed in the 1930s by
Kurath and McDavid shows the contrast to be robustly present in the speech of
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, northern and western
New York State
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, central and southern
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
, and
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
as well as the whole Atlantic coast (North and South),. However, by the 1990s, telephone surveys conducted by Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006) show those areas as having completely or almost completely undergone the merger. Even in areas in which the distinction is still made, the acoustic difference between the of ''horse'' and the of ''hoarse'' was found to be rather small for many speakers. In the 2006 study, most white participants in only these American cities still resisted the merger:
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.
With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...
;
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...
; and
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...
. A 2013 study of Portland, however, found the merger to have been established "at all age levels." In the 2006 study, even
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, which traditionally maintained the ''horse''–''hoarse'' distinction so strongly that it instead
merged ''card'' and ''cord'', showed that only 50% of the participants still maintained the distinction. The same pattern (a ''horse''–''hoarse'' distinction and a ''card''–''cord'' merger) also exists in a minority of speakers in Texas and Utah. New Orleans prominently shows much variability regarding the merger, including some speakers with no merger at all. Black Americans are rapidly undergoing the merger but are also less likely to do so than white Americans, with a little over half of the 2006 study's black participants maintaining the merger nationwide.
The two groups of words merged by the rule are called the
lexical sets (including ''horse'') and (including ''hoarse'') by Wells (1982).
Words with the
FORCE vowel that are not written with an obviously long vowel are relatively more likely to occur in the following circumstances:
* When the vowel immediately follows a labial consonant, , as ''force'' itself.
* In
past participles in ''-orn'' whose corresponding
past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
forms are in ''-ore'', as in ''torn''.
* in vowels ending with a silent ''e'', as in ''horde''.
* derived from a word where the long vowel spelling is used
merger
The merger or ''cheer''–''chair'' merger is the merger of the Early Modern English sequences and , as well as the between them, and is found in some accents of Modern English. Many speakers in New Zealand merge them towards the vowel, but some speakers in
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
and
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
merge them towards the vowel. The merger is widespread in Caribbean English, including
Jamaican English
Jamaican English, including Jamaican Standard English, is a variety of English native to Jamaica and is the official language of the country. A distinction exists between Jamaican English and Jamaican Patois (or Creole), though not entirely a ...
.
mergers
The fern–fir–fur merger is the merger of as many as five Middle English vowels into one vowel when historically followed by in the
coda
Coda or CODA may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* Movie coda, a post-credits scene
* ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television
*''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
of a
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
. The merged vowel is in
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
and (phonetically a syllabic approximant or ) in American, Canadian, and Irish English. As a result of the merger, the vowels in words like , , and are the same in almost all modern accents of English. The exceptions are
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...
, in which and belong to the same phoneme and so covers both and one of the vowels, and some varieties of
Irish English
Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
.
John C. Wells
John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics.
Career
Wells ea ...
calls it briefly the merger. The three separate vowels are retained by some speakers of Scottish English. What has been called the ''term''–''nurse'' merger is resisted by some speakers of Irish English, but the full merger is found in almost all other dialects of English.
In local working-class Dublin, the West and South-West Region, and other very
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
and traditional varieties in Ireland, ranging from the south to the north of the island, the typical English phoneme actually retains an opposition as two separate phonemes: and . For example, the words ''earn'' and ''urn'' are pronounced differently in those traditional varieties: as vowel after a
labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, bot ...
, as in ''fern''; when it is spelled as "ur" or "or", as in ''word''; or when it is spelled as "ir" after an
alveolar stop
In phonetics and phonology, an alveolar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue in contact with the alveolar ridge located just behind the teeth (hence alveolar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop cons ...
, as in ''dirt''. In all other cases, the vowel is then pronounced as . Examples with include ''certain'' , ''chirp'' , ''circle'' , ''earn'' , ''earth'' , ''girl'' , ''germ'' , ''heard'' or ''herd'' , ''irk'' , and ''
tern
Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of e ...
'' . Examples for include ''bird'' , ''dirt'' , ''first'' , ''murder'' , ''nurse'' , ''turn'' , ''third'' or ''turd'' , ''urn'' , ''work'' , and ''world'' . In non-local middle- and upper-class Dublin and in younger and supraregional Irish accents, the difference is seldom preserved, and both variants of are typically merged as , the same as or similar to most American accents.
In Scottish English, a distinct ''nurse'' or ''fur'' vowel is also used in these cases:
* The spelling in words like , , , , , , , , , , and . The surviving (barring the
''hurry''–''furry'' merger) can be compared to words like .
* The spelling in words like , , , , , , and . The surviving (barring the
''hurry''–''furry'' merger) can be compared to words like , , and .
In Scottish English, a distinct ''term'' or ''fern'' vowel is used in these cases:
* (past tense of ''to be'')
*
* Words like , , , , , ''
Earp'', , , , ''
Hearst'', , , , , , and .
merger
Some
older Southern American English varieties and some of England's
West Country dialects
West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of South West England, the area sometimes popularly known as the West Country.
The West Country is often defined as encompassin ...
have a partial merger of . They generally pronounce as , which rhymes with (compare general English realisations of ''cue'' and ''coo''). Words such as ''beard'' are then pronounced as . Usual word pairs like ''beer'' and ''burr'' are still distinguished as and . However, is dropped after a
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
(as in ''queer'') or a
palato-alveolar consonant (as in ''cheer''), likely because of
phonotactic
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
constraints, which then results in a merger with : , .
There is evidence that the
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
in
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
, merges both and with and so ''here'' and ''hair'' are both pronounced the same as the strong pronunciation of ''her''.
merger
The merger (words like ''perk'' being pronounced like ''pork'') involves the merger of with and occurs in
broadest Geordie
Geordie () is a nickname for a person from the Tyneside area of North East England, and the dialect used by its inhabitants, also known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English. There are different definitions of what constitut ...
.
Some words (roughly those spelled with ''a'') have a distinct vowel in broad Geordie. Therefore, the merger involves only some of the words corresponding to historical in Received Pronunciation.
merger
The merger, or ''fair''–''fur'' merger, is a merger of with ( and in rhotic accents) that occurs in some accents like the
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, the newer
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, and
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
accents. The phonemes are merged to in
Kingston-upon-Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east o ...
and
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area.
Until the early 1800s, the a ...
.
Shorrocks reports that in the dialect of
Bolton, Greater Manchester
Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th centu ...
, the two sets are generally merged to /ɵ:/, but some words such as ''first'' have a short /ɵ/.
The merger is found in some varieties of
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
and is pronounced : "A recent development reported for some
AAE (in Memphis, but likely found elsewhere)."
[Thomas, Erik (2007). "Phonological and Phonetic Characteristics of African American Vernacular English." Language and Linguistics Compass 1/5. North Carolina State University. p. 466.] This is exemplified in
Chingy
Howard Earl Bailey Jr. (born March 9, 1980), known professionally as Chingy, is an American rapper. Chingy grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and began rapping in his late teens. He toured as an opening act with Nelly in the summer of 2002 and the ...
's song "
Right Thurr
"Right Thurr" is a song by American rapper Chingy. It was co-written and produced by St. Louis production team The Trak Starz. It was released on April 14, 2003, by Capitol Records, Priority Records, and Disturbing tha Peace as the debut single ...
", in which the merger is spelled in the title.
Labov (1994) also reports such a merger in some western parts of the United States "with a high degree of r constriction."
See also
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Phonological history of English
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Among ...
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Phonological history of English vowels
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
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''Coil''–''curl'' merger
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English phonology
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Amon ...
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History of English
English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Sa ...
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''R''-colored vowel
Sound samples
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:English-Language Vowel Changes Before Historic R
Dialects of English
Splits and mergers in English phonology