Teenglish from England

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Sep 17 15:51:43 UTC 2009 

At 10:30 AM -0500 9/17/09, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>  >
>>  When it comes to words like "English" which begin with letter "e" (so
>>  there's no visual letter "i" influence) and it's pronounced in talking
>>  dictionaries, surely we all can hear long e ~ee (as in teen) not short i,
>>  (as in tin).  And yet dictionaries persist in showing the vowel as short i
>>  while the speaker audibly says long e.
>
>
>Am I getting this right? Is the argument that the first vowel of "English"
>is pronounced the same as the vowel in "teen" in Standard English?
>
>Scot

Yup, and more fully (in Tom's argument, not Wilson's) that those of
us who are convinced that we don't pronounce it that way are
misguided.

LH

>
>On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: Teenglish from England
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  I recall being taught as a child that "English" started with a lax
>>  /I/, as in "in".  This was to correct those who used a spelling
>>  pronunciation with lax /E/ as in "en".  None of my teachers or fellow
>>  SE Michiganders, at least that I knew at the time, used the tense
>>  vowel /i/ as in "eve".  I am aware that some speakers do have the
>>  tense vowel before /N/ and some don't.  I am one who does not.  Of
>>  course, even for lax vowel speakers like me, the vowel is raised
>>  slightly before a velar nasal.  This is allophonic and does not change
>>  it to tense /i/ for those speakers.
>>
>>  Herb
>>
>>  On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  > Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>  > Subject:      Re: Teenglish from England
>>  >
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >
>>  > Good one Wilson.  And you try to tell the teacher that it's the way the
>>  teacher also says it too, yet he would not believe.
>>  >
>>  > When it comes to words like "English" which begin with letter "e" (so
>>  there's no visual letter "i" influence) and it's pronounced in talking
>>  dictionaries, surely we all can hear long e ~ee (as in teen) not short i,
>>   (as in tin).  And yet dictionaries persist in showing the vowel as short i
>>  while the speaker audibly says long e.  Boogles my mind and has done so
>>  since learning reading in 2nd grade.
>>  >
>>  > Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>>  > see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >>
>>  >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  >> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  >> Poster: Wilson Gray
>>  >> Subject: Re: Teenglish from England
>>  >>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>
>>  >> It's a tense [i] in some dialects. Or maybe only in some idiolects. I
>>  fough=
>>  >> t
>>  >> TZ's fight in Articulatory Phonetics 101 at Davis. The prof responded,
>>  >> "Well, if that's the way *you* say it ..."
>>  >> -Wilson
>>  >>
>>  >> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:42 AM, Laurence Horn wrot=
>>  >> e:
>>  >>
>>  >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  >>> -----------------------
>>  >>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  >>> Poster: Laurence Horn
>>  >>> Subject: Re: Teenglish from England
>>  >>>
>>  >>>
>>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>>  >> ------
>>  >>>
>>  >>> At 11:03 AM +0000 9/16/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>  >>>>New teenage words from England (perhaps not only England)
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>
>>  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213626/Teenglish-From-Frape-Neek=
>>  >> -words-used-teenagers-baffle-adults.html
>  > >>>>
>>  >>>>When I say the word "teenglish" my tongue goes alveolar (top front),
>>  >>>>but for English it's velar (top back). Yet the vowel befor the "n"
>>  >>>>is still long e, ~ee. ~teenglish ~Eenglish.
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>>  >>>>see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>>  >>>>_________________________________________________________________
>>  >>>
>>  >>> and for me "Teenglish" (the variety of English associated with teens)
>>  >>> differs from "Tinglish" (the variety of English that makes you
>>  >>> tingle) in and only in the quality of the vowel before the nasal,
>>  >>> which is additional evidence that the vowel in the latter case (or in
>>  >>> "English", or "Singlish" [Singaporean English]) is a lax [I], not a
>>  >>> tense [i]. (Of course I might also render the former with an
>>  >>> alveolar consonant if I wanted to stress the morphological structure
>>  >>> of "teen" + "English".)
>>  >>>
>>  >>> LH
>>  >>>
>>  >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>  >>>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >> --=20
>>  >> -Wilson
>>  >> =96=96=96
>>  >> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
>>  com=
>>  >> e
>>  >> from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>  >> =96Mark Twain
>>  >>
>>  >> ------------------------------------------------------------
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