tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post4562531405661408653..comments2024-03-17T09:14:13.950+00:00Comments on John Wells’s phonetic blog: cockney then and nowJohn Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-78264802601232030332010-11-04T11:56:26.153+00:002010-11-04T11:56:26.153+00:00Black History Month event in Cardiff last weekend ...Black History Month event in Cardiff last weekend - bass guitarist in band, from Barbados, who doesn't say "aks" (unlike the lead singer/guitar from St Kitts who does) said "ventricolist" - so we had a long chat about the history of metathesis. He's now thinking of saying aks instead of ask - probably not but not bothered any more about getting the order differently from the majority, in Cardiff anyway.Brian Morgannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-1226229417320650162010-07-19T20:50:48.594+01:002010-07-19T20:50:48.594+01:00@ Paul Kerswill: that's just an older pronunci...@ Paul Kerswill: that's just an older pronunciation. Look at the Survey of English Dialects! It expanded across the country.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-22858459801093881692010-07-09T23:21:22.755+01:002010-07-09T23:21:22.755+01:00The funny thing is rather that so many words with ...The funny thing is rather that so many words with the same (or similar, e,g, 'wasp') synchronic structure have diachronically been so subject to this metathesis, and 'aks' is merely a celebrated survivor.<br /><br />BTW even allowing for the fact that the Julie Andrews clip is an even more fake promotion of the fakery of film, show, and every stage back to the original, her fake incompetence is insufferably arch, isn't it? And isn't it pretty obvious that her coach is fake too?mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-90497018800454150392010-07-09T19:02:25.831+01:002010-07-09T19:02:25.831+01:00How widespread is 'aks' for 'ask'?...How widespread is 'aks' for 'ask'? There's a lot of it in our data from young Londoners. But does it occur in other words with the same structure, e.g. task, mask, whisk, tusk? Geographically, 'aks' is found in Ghanaian English (perhaps not the most acrolectal versions), West African pidgins, Caribbean Englishes and creoles, and African American (Vernacular) English.Paul Kerswillhttp://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/profiles/Paul-Kerswill/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-28193478718120341282010-07-07T04:04:22.826+01:002010-07-07T04:04:22.826+01:00@ other anonymous
I don't think there is a dif...@ other anonymous<br />I don't think there is a difference. But it's kind of like telling people in Queens that they don't sound any different from people in Brooklyn. You're only going to make people angry. I agree that people insist that there are differences, but somehow they can't ever manage to tell you what those differences are. <br /><br />As the article said, Cockney is now spoken in Essex but it isn't spoken in London so much. So there is now a difference between Essex and London accents.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-42556522327660873032010-07-06T20:56:59.558+01:002010-07-06T20:56:59.558+01:00I've never been able to understand a differenc...I've never been able to understand a difference between a Cockney and an Essex accent. Some people get very passionate that there is a difference, but they can never tell me what it is. Can anyone here tell me?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-12355806446444158562010-07-04T16:37:50.077+01:002010-07-04T16:37:50.077+01:00See now here for a BBC interview with Paul Kerswil...See now <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/10473059.stm" rel="nofollow">here</a> for a BBC interview with Paul Kerswill.John Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-89957525059860573242010-07-04T11:24:27.773+01:002010-07-04T11:24:27.773+01:00I wonder how that comes (but never took the timt t...I wonder how that comes (but never took the timt to look into it), given that the consonant that is pre-glottalised or entirely replaced by a glottal stop is so different in the older stages, with a range from [tʰ] to [ɾ].Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-5241160840397937742010-07-03T23:19:16.489+01:002010-07-03T23:19:16.489+01:00In my experience, Am.Eng. speakers usually realise...In my experience, Am.Eng. speakers usually realise /t/ as a glottal stop when:<br /><br />/t/ comes before a consonant<br /><br />/t/ comes before /ən/: <i>cotton</i>, <i>written</i>, <i>important</i> etc.<br /><br />when /t/ comes before /ɨn/: <i>gettin’</i>, <i>writin’</i>, <i>mountain</i> etc.<br /><br />I’ve only ever once heard an American realise intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop: <i>to[Ɂ]al</i>. The speaker was a man in his fifties from New York, and was interviewed in the BBC programme <i>Stephen Fry in America</i> (I can’t find the clip online unfortunately).<br /><br />I’m yet to hear an American who <i><b>always</b></i> realises word-final /t/ as a glottal stop, as happens in, for example, the vast majority of English English speakers born after WWII. <br /><br />By this, I mean that no matter whether /t/ comes before a consonant <i>(he hi[Ɂ] me)</i>, a vowel <i>(he hi[Ɂ] us)</i>, or is utterance-final <i>(I found i[Ɂ])</i>, it is realised as a glottal stop.<br /><br />For example: <br /><br />Do you have a YouTube (account)?<br /><br />Yes I do, bu[Ɂ] I don’t use i[Ɂd].<br /><br />(05:20 onwards in this vid):<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GBZCEJmz_Q<br /><br />She realises the /t/ of "but" as a glottal stop, even though /t/ comes before a vowel, but when utterance-final, she realises /t/ as [Ɂd] (the most common realisation for utterance-final /t/ in North American speech).<br /><br />~~~<br /><br />Another noteworthy feature of what, in my experience, occurs in the speech of a minority of speakers of English from the USA, is L-vocalisation, a consistent feature of this speaker’s speech: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy6vktJ5_f0).<br /><br />(However, /l/ + /w/ usually = [w w]: <i>always</i> [ˈɑːwweɪz]; <i>the hole [hoʊw] was three feet deep</i> etc.).Tom Frickernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-37153926550481266462010-07-03T21:41:26.030+01:002010-07-03T21:41:26.030+01:00I don't know if there is glottalization of /t/...I don't know if there is glottalization of /t/ in North American English, but there are many unreleased /t/'s. Those two things sound similar to me for some reason. I'm American by the way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-14051783627997212212010-07-03T18:32:04.532+01:002010-07-03T18:32:04.532+01:00@wjarek
Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn't realize wha...@wjarek<br />Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn't realize what you were asking for. My bad. <br /><br />JoeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-87600344647365731452010-07-03T16:23:37.173+01:002010-07-03T16:23:37.173+01:00@Joe anonymous: It's not that easy. I'm fa...@Joe anonymous: It's not that easy. I'm familiar with all of these. The first deals, as the title suggests, with the glottalisation of vowels (aka "hard attack"), and refers to rather well-known work by Pierrehumbert on the same topic. What we're talking of here is glottalisation of /t/. The second and third article give rather basic statistical data, without any sociophonetic discussion whatsoever. The third even says, "Perhaps the most interesting observation is the relatively high frequency of the glottal stop [q] in spontaneous speech", which sort of supports my question. The major sociophonetic work in the field that I'm aware of is Roberts, J. 2006. "As old becomes new: Glottalization in Vermont". American Speech 81: 227-249. And the author complains of the scarcity of research into /t/ glottalisation in American English...wjarekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07871668374161722713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-73006204664871313812010-07-03T15:30:37.062+01:002010-07-03T15:30:37.062+01:00For @wiserk read @wjarekFor @wiserk read @wjarekAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-20342281387837680102010-07-03T15:28:31.806+01:002010-07-03T15:28:31.806+01:00@wiserk,
(Joe again, by the by, I really do need t...@wiserk,<br />(Joe again, by the by, I really do need to get a Google identity)<br /><br />Try Google Scholar if you are looking for articles on the subject. There is certainly a lot of information on the subject. It took me less a minute to find three articles: "Glottalization of word-initial vowels as a function of prosodic structure," "54,000" American Stops," and "Insights into spoken language gleaned from phonetic transcription of the switchboard corpus" (all of which are freely available).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-35685681241468169692010-07-03T13:27:08.481+01:002010-07-03T13:27:08.481+01:00Oh, this is a useful off-topic turn. There's a...Oh, this is a useful off-topic turn. There's a rather widespread misconception among the, erm, wider public (i.e. language peevers and sociolinguists, those perverts) that there's little (or in fact no) glottalisation in American English. This even extends to my fellow (NNS) pronunciation teachers.<br /><br />In my experience, this is blatantly untrue, so I wholeheartedly support anonymous, luke and vp above. But very little has been published on this -- probably fewer than five articles. The amount of attention in the literature that glottalisation in the UK has received is larger by several orders of magnitude. One reason is, of course, the social importance that is attached to it in the UK. Glottalisation seems to be far less sociophonetically marked in the US.<br /><br />So, more comments, please. Or maybe our host would be so kind as to write a whole separate post about it?wjarekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07871668374161722713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-16898615472157688792010-07-03T08:39:56.212+01:002010-07-03T08:39:56.212+01:00@Pedro and VP,
I think glottal stops have always b...@Pedro and VP,<br />I think glottal stops have always been possible in AmE for the contexts you describe in at least some parts of the country. A lot of Americans, for example, would pronounce "button" as [bʌʔn] (and I imagine the person singing "getting" pronounces a syllabic n rather than a velar plosive at the end). There might be some difference among parts of the country or among speakers within those areas, but the appearance of a glottal stop in these examples is not really all that remarkable in AmE per se. I would accept the influence of London accent on American speech if the glottal stop appeared in a context where it doesn't typically occur. So, for instance, if an American used a glottal stop in a word like "butter" or in "lot of" (where Americans would use a flap), I might be inclided to attribute such an influence. <br /><br />@Anonymous (above),<br />You might find Joanna Przedlacka's Estuary English useful in answering this question.<br /><br />JoeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-16175278091627872372010-07-03T08:39:29.707+01:002010-07-03T08:39:29.707+01:00vp: It's one thing to glottalize your t before...vp: It's one thing to glottalize your t before syllabic n, and I agree that that is becoming quite common in North America (words such as getting, gluten). But do the locals in your area say [leɪʔ], [ɡɛʔ], [bɛʔɚ], [sɪʔi]?lukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10967852565627690025noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-2096960881035813802010-07-03T08:29:20.644+01:002010-07-03T08:29:20.644+01:00So there are still young speakers speaking a Cockn...So there are still young speakers speaking a Cockney-like accent in the Home Counties? That's kind of strange, considering that the popular belief in England is that the Home Counties are home to extremely posh accents.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-17047807334120542192010-07-03T01:32:11.936+01:002010-07-03T01:32:11.936+01:00@Pedro:
Glottalling of /t/ is endemic in the youn...@Pedro:<br /><br />Glottalling of /t/ is endemic in the younger generation over here in Northern California.<br /><br />I remember my initial surprise when a teenage girl working in a Starbucks, who by every appearance was locally raised, touted [glʉʔn] free cookies!vphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16647609487352038948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-56118389218945321722010-07-02T21:14:45.936+01:002010-07-02T21:14:45.936+01:00And is the London accent becoming fashionable in p...And is the London accent becoming fashionable in pop music? You can clearly hear a glottal stop in "getting", "late", "but" and "don't" in "Memories" (2:27 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI3Rgq5HJ5Q). It's sung by Kid Cudi, an American rapper.Pedronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-18016335608003548352010-07-02T20:07:07.694+01:002010-07-02T20:07:07.694+01:00@Mollymooly,
The two are not mutually exclusive. B...@Mollymooly,<br />The two are not mutually exclusive. Brooklyn is certainly a borough of NYC even though it (like Queens) are "technically" on Long Island. For most people, however, Long Island is really only Naussau and Suffolk counties.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-46991667383219183632010-07-02T19:32:41.274+01:002010-07-02T19:32:41.274+01:00@Amy Stoller: ...also, Brooklyn is technically par...@Amy Stoller: ...also, Brooklyn is technically part of Long Island.mollymoolynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-16549426352352900002010-07-02T19:27:11.374+01:002010-07-02T19:27:11.374+01:00Does anyone know of freely available corpora for e...Does anyone know of freely available corpora for either "traditional" Cockney or Multicultural English variety?) (I know the British Library sources as well as Corpus of English Intonation in the British Isles, but was looking for others).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-85234697878112732452010-07-02T16:31:44.116+01:002010-07-02T16:31:44.116+01:00I suppose I should have said "the rest of New...I suppose I should have said "the rest of New York," since Staten Island is actually a borough of the city. BUt it doesn't really count. (That's a joke, folks - sort of.)Amy Stollerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14067839246823753590noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-10253610001764136972010-07-02T16:30:23.907+01:002010-07-02T16:30:23.907+01:00Something similar to what you describe re Cockney ...Something similar to what you describe re Cockney has happened to the classic Noo Yawk accent. Much of Brooklynese has migrated to Long Island and Staten Island, although it is not dead in New York - not yet.Amy Stollerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14067839246823753590noreply@blogger.com