those low vowels again

[Arnold Zwicky]

back on 26 july, discussing "barak" vs. "arafat", i said:

 the second vowel of "barak" is almost invariably back

well, now i've heard a CBC announcer ("As It Happens") interviewing
various people about the talks, and she resolutely had a front vowel
for the stressed vowel of "barak".  most of the people she interviewed
had a back vowel, but one had a front vowel throughout - whether as
part of his variety or as an accommodation to her, i couldn't of
course tell.

my impression is that in certain contexts, like proper names, the two
vowels count, in some sense, as being equivalents, despite their being
clearly distinctive elsewhere in the language.  what i mean is that i
suspect that many (?most) speakers don't even register the vowel
quality differences between "bar[a]k" and "bar[ae]k", etc., and
probably couldn't tell you which vowel someone they were talking to
had used.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)