Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 June 18

= June 18 =

Old Kyoto Accent
What is the mainstream opinion regarding the framework laid out by Samuel Robert Ramsey in The Old Kyoto Dialect and The Historical Development of Japanese Accent for Old Kyoto accent? In short, he believes that the Old Kyoto even pitch was a rising pitch, and the rising pitch was a falling one, so that kátàchì is kàtà-tì (RRR), and ínù-gà is ínú-gà (EER). déhanchements (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Air
In the 1860 song sheet Hicks the Pirate it says:
 * Air: "The Rose Tree"

Should the caption read "sung to The Rose Tree" or "played to The Rose Tree" or ..? -- Green  C  21:31, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking at Air (music), I think the use of "air" is equivalent to "sung to the tune of". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * , thanks! --  Green  C  02:18, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

GreenC -- there are somewhat similar notes at the beginning of some of the psalms in the Biblical Book of Psalms. AnonMoos (talk) 03:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Short o words
There are many words taught in phonics classes as short o words when they are in fact words with the aw sound, including dog, frog, and song. Listen to these words. They have the aw sound, not the short o sound as in the word not. Why are they taught as the short o sound?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Before tackling a "Why?", can you provide a citation in support of your statement? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:37, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Pronunciation of English words across the globe is very diverse. Here in Australia, dog, frog, and song all have exactly the same vowel sound as not. HiLo48 (talk) 00:38, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * In the American south, "dog" can sound like "dah-ohg" (often spelled "dawg"), which is pretty near a long o. But if phonics calls it a short o, that could be a default for not a long o (as in cope, dope, rope, etc.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:10, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Georgia_guy -- we have articles on Cot-caught merger and Father-bother merger. It would be nice to know where your "idiolect" stands with respect to those changes. Also, phonics is a method of teaching reading, while phonetics is the study of speech sounds. AnonMoos (talk) 03:37, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The OP question seems to be about the cot-caught merger. From the OP's question I would surmise that he does not have the merger in his dialect and therefore distinguishes those sounds (as I do). A large percentage of the US population speaks those vowels identically, and in fact I find when talking to such people about it, that in many cases they claim to be unable to distinguish them, even when listening to them enunciated by someone who does clearly produce them differently. So when you say "listen to these words", you are going to get very different responses depending on the dialect that your listener speaks. Most people who grew up west of the Rockies will say "cot" and "caught" have the same vowel. CodeTalker (talk) 04:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * This east coast American would say "caht", "cawt", "naht", "dawg", "frahg", and "sawng". "Frawg" sounds Southern. Jmar67 (talk) 10:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Deputy Dawg anyone?


 * The OP's question has nothing to do with the cot-caught merger, nor with the bother-father merger (bomb-balm merger). Whether the OP makes a distinction between caught and cot (I guess they do), and whether they make a distinction between bomb and balm (I guess they don't), they may still ask their question, because they are not aware of the distinction between GA (General American) accent and the British one.
 * The GA speakers pronounce the "o" of "dog" and "song" (and "loss" and "off" and "cloth"), as a long one, i.e. DAWg (like the vowel of "dawn") and SAWng (like the vowel of "saw"), i.e. like the long "o" of "bought", as opposed to the short one of "cot". However, the Brits pronounce the "o" of "dog" and "song" (and "loss" and "off" and "cloth"), as a short one, i.e. like that of "cot", as opposed to the long one of "bought". Hope this helps. Umzu (talk) 20:06, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand, except that "long o" is a phrase everyone understands as referring to the vowel in "boat", and can be a little confusing if you use it to mean the sound in "bought". Georgia guy (talk) 20:42, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * All right, I've just removed the confusing words from my first response (by striking them out). BTW, was I correct about what I assumed about you and the cot-caught merger and the bomb-balm merger? Umzu (talk) 22:13, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. The vowel in caught sounds darker, and that is an easy-to-see difference. But for father and bother, they have the same vowel sound; I grew up perceiving them as such barring the fact that dictionaries often distinguished them despite being the same sound in American dialects. Georgia guy (talk) 22:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep. English is wonderful. Millions of speakers of the "same" language all over the world, and some of us still can't understand one another. HiLo48 (talk) 00:04, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * A British colleague of mine used to quote the old joke that England and America are "two countries divided by a common language." But it may not be limited to just those two. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The joke is commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw. Oscar Wilde wrote "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.".   Dbfirs  07:49, 21 June 2019 (UTC)


 * This is about the lot-cloth split. The vowels in the word "hot dog" are different on the American East Coast, while Received Pronunciation treats them the same and the West Coast has an additional merger with the aw-vowel. Judging from the username, the OP seems to be from Georgia, which is probably why he has a question like that. Due the influence of Hollywood, the California accent is considered fairly neutral, so maybe some teachers will teach English without the merger. --94.134.89.230 (talk) 22:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)