[Ads-l] comparing US and UK accents for 25 words in truespel phonetics.

[Edward Aveyard]

Thanks for sending this, Tom.

I have recently joined the American Dialect Society and, after a period of lurking in the e-mail distribution list, this is my first e-mail.  I am the treasurer and archivist of the Yorkshire Dialect Society.  I believe that there were links between our societies, many decades ago, and I was curious to see what you do in the ADS.  

With regards to the link below, the respelling system is very hard for a Yorkshire dialect speaker to understand.  I hazard a guess that a "UK accent" means Received Pronunciation (a concept that, despite strenuous effort, I have not been able to understand).  As most of the words are learned ones, I don't think that there would be a large amount of variation within the UK.  "Often" is an exception: that tends to be said as ɒftn̩ in the north (where the form was "oft" ɒft until relatively recently) and ɒfn̩ in the south.  I think that the US transcription for "sixth" implies sɪkst: that was recorded across Yorkshire up to the mid-20th Century, but I think that I'm safe in saying that it's died out here now.

I look forward to more discussions on our languages and dialects,
Edward Aveyard,
Hon. Treasurer and Archivist, Yorkshire Dialect Society
And ordinary member of the American Dialect Society

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas
Sent: 17 May 2021 02:49
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: comparing US and UK accents for 25 words in truespel phonetics.

A truespel comparison of 25 hard-to-say words found that 20 of the 25 words were different between US and UK accents.  Only 13% of the phonemes were different, 68% of the difference was vowels.
https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjustpaste.it%2F25words&data=04%7C01%7C%7Ccf155afd8450426d76ff08d918d5e59d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637568129222064332%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=kvYaoM%2BOWQ%2BYX7FAEY60p%2BsAnlI9lQWst%2B8bpzZ7uj8%3D&reserved=0

Tom Zurinskas,  Originally from SW Conn 20 yrs,  college NE Tenn 3,  work SE NJ  33,  resides SE Florida 18...  truespel.com







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