[Ads-l] Pronunciation of Appalachia

[Geoffrey Nathan]

I happen to have three linguist-authored pronouncing dictionaries.

Daniel Jones (1949, tenth ed.) gives /ei/
Kenyon and Knott (1953) gives /ae/
JC Wells (1990) gives /ei/

But there's a further variable, which I discovered by
accident, namely whether the 'ch' is an affricate
('church') or a fricative ('shush')

Furthermore, I find I distinguish between the place name
(Appalachia) and the trail name (Appalachian). And so does
JC Wells.

Curiouser and curiouser….

Geoff


Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993
geoffnathan at wayne.edu

From: Jonathan Lighter<mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2020 5:26 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of Appalachia

[EXTERNAL]

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Pronunciation of Appalachia
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I don't know what the time frame is meant to be, but when I came there in
1974, /ae/ was already universal.

My /ei/ was mocked.

JL

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 3:54 PM Joe Salmons <
000008f18d0e0c45-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> A colleague =E2=80=93 non-linguist =E2=80=93 mentioned today that he thin=
ks the
> pronunciation of =E2=80=98Appalachian=E2=80=99 has changed over time, nam=
ely toward having
> /=C3=A6/. Does anybody know of data on this? It=E2=80=99s obviously varia=
ble with a
> regional piece to the variation, but I don=E2=80=99t know about diachroni=
c change
> here.
> Thanks,
> Joe
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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