Zompist Bboard Again

. (I also have a tenuous unstressed /u/ in some unstressed C_V such as in mutual that in careful speech is pronounced as a full vowel but readily becomes [w] in everyday speech.) That's not unusual in words with -ual ; in fact, some speakers can have no /w/ at all, making -ual and -ial homophones. ...

keenir wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2024 12:44 am the Copts would be shocked to hear that they are speaking a nonexisting language.

Coptic has not had native-speaker transmission for multiple hundred years now, so while they may technically be speaking it, that statement needs qualification.

sti is generally pronounced [stʃ], as in question, suggestion, Christian; his explanation for the [t] is that it remains "to avoid the juxtaposition of [s] and [ʃ]" — i generally have [ʃtʃ] in these words This goes back to the Old French pronunciation of Latin learnedisms adopted into Mid...

Likewise, ME /x/ either disappeared or turned into [f], outside Early Modern Scots, without a corresponding change of /k/. To be annoyingly late and pedantic, /x/ was also retained in the Yorkshire-Lancashire border area until very recently; the 1950-1961 Survey of English Dialects recorded light n...

Dentalisation of labiodentals before front vowels (presumably through a apicolabial intermediate): ['ðœː.ʒæ] dhöžä "(to a woman of higher rank than oneself) Mrs., Ms.; (with titles of office) madam; (of judges, justices) your honour" Velar-palatal sequences become alveolo-palatals: ['d͡ʑo]...

Rhoticity is lost, though not before lowering preceding vowels:

['vɞj.ja]
wéorle
‘(highly formal) mother; prime minister; madam, Mrs.’

[l] > [j] before non-back vowels:

['vɵ˞ː.jə]
wéorle
“mother; madam, Mrs.”

Does anyone know anything about the variant /æt/ of that ? I have it and I have heard my daughter use it. And it clearly is not a variant of it to me; it feels like an allomorph of that rather than an independent word. The pronunciation of that as /at/ is common in Scots and the dialects of Norther...

[ʎj] > [j]:

[jaːʃ]
gliáč
"wolf"

I see. I had wanted to add a summary of Lass's arguments but found I couldn't easily make one as he seems pretty uncertain too. I'm not sure whether I am inclined to defer to the mainstream in this case so I am curious about any other evidence that pertains to this. I'm not aware of anyone else who...

Final nasals velarise:
[’njɛ:k.kaŋ]
nnẹẹkkan
"she wolf"

Isn't it clear that visible effects of a sound change in spelling can only provide a terminus ante quem , not a terminus post quem for the sound change? In modern German, word-initial [z] (in accents that have it) is represented by ⟨s⟩ up to the present. I based my previous message on Roger Lass's ...

Long vowels break:

[nθɛ̂ə̯]
nthæ⁴²

[j] is lost before front vowels:

[’nœ̄.ʂʰæ̂ː]
nyœ³thræ⁴²
'bystander'

[ʃT] > [Tʰ]:

[’njœ̄.ʈʂʰæ̋ˀ]
nlœ³stræ’⁵
'bystander'

It has been argued that there was variation between dialects of Old English in the voicing of word-initial fricatives. I am personally sympathetic to this belief, but the mainstream view is that initial fricative voicing in the dialects of Southern England and the the south-western Midlands only oc...

[pɹ tɹ kɹ] > [ʈʂ]:

[’njœ̋.ʃʈʂæ̋ˀ]
nlœ⁵stræ’⁵
'bystander'

Secondary stress is lost:

[ˈʁœ:qχœ]
Rødgrød

Diphthong and Long Vowel collapse: [oi̯ əi̯ ai̯ oː iː ɛ: au̯ əu̯ uː aː] merge to [ei̯ ei ei̯ ei ei ou̯ ou̯ ou̯ ou̯], with attempts at spelling reform, followed by a trend of hypercorrect spelling: A bit over the top IMHO (unless you're responding to my last turn, which I agree was a bit much too). ...

Simplfiication of the diphthong system; [uu̯ ii̯ ou̯ æi̯ aːi̯ ui̯] > [əu̯ əi̯ au̯ ai̯ oi̯ oi̯] in stressed syllables; [ii̯ ɛi̯ iu̯] all monophthongise in unstressed syllables: ['zoi̯s 'tɕaː.ə 'ni: 'doi̯ na 'ai̯] Záichs ciáche ní dui na ai ['tɕai̯.njoː.na 'pjai̯.ɕi 'jau̯ 'tɕai̯ na 'hu: ɾjau̯.mi] ciai...