Teenglish from England

[Herb Stahlke]

This is a claim Tom has maintained for as long as I've read his
postings on this list.  In an earlier thread on the topic several
years ago, it appeared that some speakers hear the vowel as closer to
/i/ and others, like me, have a vowel closer to the vowel of "in".  I
don't recall whether anyone claimed that the vowel is in fact tense,
and I, like many, find tense, non-low vowels before /N/ pretty much
impossible in English.

Herb

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Scot LaFaive <slafaive at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Scot LaFaive <slafaive at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Teenglish from England
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>
>> 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
>
> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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>> -----------------------
>> 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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