Most common sound for words ending in letter "a"

[Tom Zurinskas]

I looked at the truespel database for words ending in letter "a" to see how they're pronounced as I interpret talking dictionaires saying them.  If you discount words "sea, tea, la, ta, ha" the sound is 100% ~u (uh).  Note, I estimate that the top 5k words make up about 90% of the words seen on a page of typical text.  They are the most popular words.

The copied spreadsheet data at bottom are in the following 4 columns:
tradspel ~truespel  count phoneme

tz



Count of last vowel sounds for words ending in "a"
by Tom Zurinskas - using the truespel spreadsheet database

Data are from Collins Cobuild (15 million words in text)
for the top 5,000 English words in common media text.
My phonetic interpretation is as heard from two USA talking dictionaries

Results
For 99% of USA English words ending in the letter "a"
the sound is ~u (uh) as in the most common  word "a."
Also, take the word "a" out, and it's 84%.

Sound instances words  top word
~u (uh) 455798 38 a
~ee  4412 2 tea
~aa (ah) 1515 3 la
 461725

 instance count  455,798
 word count  43

tradspel ~truespel  count phoneme

a ~u 419,798 ~u
idea ~ieddeeyu 4,847 ~u
area ~aireeyu 3,558 ~u
sea ~see 2,831 ~ee
America ~Ummairiku 2,417 ~u
Africa ~Afriku 2,057 ~u
tea ~tee 1,581 ~ee
extra ~ekstru 1,432 ~u
china ~Chienu 1,106 ~u
India ~Indeeyu 1,058 ~u
data ~daetu 831 ~u
Barbara ~Baarbru 829 ~u
media ~meedeeyu 766 ~u
Australia ~austrralyu 657 ~u
California ~Kaliffornyu 636 ~u
la ~laa 625 ~aa
Rhoda ~Roedu 616 ~u
Russia ~Rushu 569 ~u
Frederica ~Frederreeku 557 ~u
ta ~taa 516 ~aa
propaganda ~praapuggandu 477 ~u
Asia ~Aezhu 461 ~u
flora ~floru 442 ~u
Eva ~Eevu 437 ~u
formula ~formyuelu 429 ~u
camera ~kamru 425 ~u
Canada ~Kanudu 422 ~u
opera ~aapru 407 ~u
era ~eeru 407 ~u
drama ~draamu 404 ~u
Ira ~Ieru 377 ~u
ha ~haa 374 ~aa
sofa ~soefu 360 ~u
via ~veeyu 336 ~u
vita ~veetu 331 ~u
Virginia ~Verjjinyu 318 ~u
Etta ~Etu 318 ~u
Cuba ~Kyuebu 317 ~u
cinema ~sinimu 313 ~u
Victoria ~Vikttoreeyu 294 ~u
Patricia ~Putrrishyu 292 ~u
Marsha ~Maarshu 290 ~u
Scylla ~Silu 280 ~u




Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com
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