[Ads-l] old-time stress in "hot dog," pronun. of "Haiti."

[Tom Zurinskas]

Pronouncing the "ai" letter string in the word "Haiti" as "long a" (~ae) is natural for US English.  This departs from other languages which have "ai" as "long i" as in "pie" (~ie).  The top 5k words of US English do not have one word with "ai" equaling ~ie (long i).  
See the truespel phoneme analysis of "ai" letter string at  http://justpaste.it/5ktradai .Note that in the 57k (now 63k) word truespel database there were 1,227 words with "ai" in them and only 34 were for "long i" ~ie.

Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now FL 12.See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk


> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: old-time stress in "hot dog," pronun. of "Haiti."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 5:49 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > The BBC says:
> > <<Similarly, while different anglicisations for Haiti (HIGH-ti,
> > high-EE-ti and haa-EE-ti) are in still use, HAY-ti is considered the
> > most widespread and established and we recommend this pronunciation.>>
> >
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/magazinemonitor/2010/01/how_to_say_haiti_and_portaupri.shtml
> >
> 
> So, the BBC has finally seen the American light and has decided let other
> pronunciations go missing from Britspeak.
> 
> 
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
 		 	   		  
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org