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South African English Phonology
This article covers the phonological system of South African English (SAE) as spoken by White South Africans. While there is some variation among speakers, SAE typically has a number of features in common with English as it is spoken in southern England (in places like London), such as non-rhoticity and the – split. The two main phonological features that mark South African English as distinct are the behaviour of the vowels in and . The vowel tends to be "split" so that there is a clear allophonic variation between the front and central or . The vowel is characteristically back in the General and Broad varieties of SAE. The tendency to monophthongise and to and respectively, are also typical features of General and Broad White South African English. General South African English features phonemic vowel length (so that ''ferry'' and ''fairy'' as well as ''cot'' and ''cart'' differ only in length) as well as phonemic roundedness, so that ''fairy'' is dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonology
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 particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but may now relate to any linguistic analysis either: Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages. The building blocks of signs are specifications for movement, location, and handshape. At first, a separate terminology was used for the study of sign phonology ('chereme' instead of 'phoneme', etc.), but the concepts are now considered to apply universally to all human languages. Terminology The word 'phonology' (as in ' phonology of English') can refer either to the field of study or to the phonological system of a given language. This is one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Vowel
An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the context of the phonology of any particular language, a ''low vowel'' can be any vowel that is more open than a mid vowel. That is, open-mid vowels, near-open vowels, and open vowels can all be considered low vowels. Partial list The open vowels with dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * open front unrounded vowel * open front rounded vowel This vowel is not known to occur as a phoneme distinct from in any language. * open back unrounded vowel * open back rounded vowel There also are central vowels that do not have dedicated symbols in the IPA: * open central unrounded vowel or (commonly written as if it were front) * open central rounded vowel There is no unambiguous way of transcribing the open cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiced Glottal Fricative
The voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', but often lacks the usual ''phonetic'' characteristics of a consonant. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\. In many languages, has no place or manner of articulation. Thus, it has been described as a breathy-voiced counterpart of the following vowel from a phonetic point of view. However, its characteristics are also influenced by the ''preceding'' vowels and whatever other sounds surround it. Therefore, it can be described as a segment whose only consistent feature is its breathy voice phonation in such languages. It may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish), making it a fricative. Lamé contrasts voiceless and voiced glottal fricatives. Features ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Th-fronting
''Th''-fronting is the pronunciation of the English "th" as "f" or "v". When ''th''-fronting is applied, becomes (for example, ''three'' is pronounced as ''free'') and becomes (for example, ''bathe'' is pronounced as ''bave''). (Here "fronting" refers to the position in the mouth where the sound is produced, not the position of the sound in the word, with the "th" coming from the tongue as opposed to the "f" or "v" coming from the more-forward lower lip.) Unlike the fronting of to , the fronting of to usually does not occur word-initially (for example, while ''bathe'' can be pronounced as ''bave'', ''that'' is rarely pronounced as *''vat'') although this was found in the speech of South-East London in a survey completed 1990-4. ''Th''-fronting is a prominent feature of several dialects of English, notably Cockney, Essex dialect, Estuary English, some West Country and Yorkshire dialects, African American Vernacular English, and Liberian English, as well as in many non- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alveolar Consonant
Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with the tip of the tongue (the apical consonants), as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just above the tip (the "blade" of the tongue; called laminal consonants), as in French and Spanish. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants. Rather, the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized like English palato-alveolar ''sh'', or retroflex. To disambiguate, the ''bridge'' (, ''etc.'') may be used for a dental consonant, or the under-bar (, ''etc.'') may be used for the postalveolars. differs from dental in that the former is a sibilant and the latter is not. differs from postalveolar in being unpalatalized. The bare letters , ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with their unaspirated counterparts, but in some other languages, notably most South Asian languages (including Indian) and East Asian languages, the difference is contrastive. In dialects with aspiration, to feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say ''spin'' and then ''pin'' . One should either feel a puff of air or see a flicker of the candle flame with ''pin'' that one does not get with ''spin''. Transcription In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), aspirated consonants are written using the symbols for voiceless consonants followed by the aspiration modifier letter , a superscript form of the symbol for the voiceless glottal fricati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geographically neutral, how many speakers there are, whether sub-varieties exist, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard and how the accent has changed over time. The name itself is controversial. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation; other areas relevant to the study of language standards such as vocabulary, grammar and style are not considered. History RP has most in common with the dialects of South East Midlands, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge. By the end of the 15th century, "Standard English" was established in the City of London, though it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century. The introduction of the term ''Received Pronunciation'' is usually credited to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand English Phonology
This article covers the phonological system of New Zealand English. While New Zealanders speak differently depending on their level of cultivation (i.e. the closeness to Received Pronunciation), this article covers the accent as it is spoken by educated speakers, unless otherwise noted. The IPA transcription is one designed by specifically to faithfully represent a New Zealand accent, which this article follows in most aspects (see table under ). Vowels Monophthongs The vowels of New Zealand English are similar to that of other non-rhotic dialects such as Australian English and RP, but with some distinctive variations, which are indicated by the transcriptions for New Zealand vowels in the tables below: ; chain shift : * The original short front vowels () have undergone a chain shift to . Recent acoustic studies featuring both Australian and New Zealand voices show the accents were more similar before World War II and the short front vowels have changed consider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian English Phonology
Australian English (AuE) is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. Australian English is notable for vowel length contrasts which are absent from most English dialects. The Australian English vowels , , and are noticeably closer (pronounced with a higher tongue position) than their contemporary Received Pronunciation equivalents. Vowels The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction. There are two families of phonemic transcription ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 close front vowel , and two long mid front vowels: the close-mid and the open-mid . The three vowels generally correspond to the modern spellings , and respectively, but other spellings are also possible. The spellings that became established in Early Modern English are mostly still used today, but the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly. The and generally corresponded to similar Old English vowels, and came from Old English or . For other possible histories, see English historical vowel correspondences. In particular, the long vowels sometimes arose from short vowels by Middle English open syllable lengthening or other processes. For example, ''team'' comes from an originally-long Old English vowel, and ''eat'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suburbs Of Johannesburg
The suburbs of Johannesburg are officially demarcated areas within the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa. As in other Commonwealth countries, the term ''suburb'' refers to a "neighbourhood", although in South Africa as most (but not all) "suburbs" have legally recognised borders (see legal definition of township) and often (but not always) separate postal codes. The municipal functions for the area, such as municipal policing and social services, are still managed by the city government. Johannesburg, like many other boom towns, grew rapidly and with little planning, and thus the city covers an extremely large area. The main differences between the city's suburbs tend to be socioeconomic: The north is often associated with wealth due to areas such as Houghton, which boasts large properties and contained the residence of former president Nelson Mandela, and Sandton which has become an alternative business district and is referred to as "Africa's richest s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
