Change in Language?

[Carborendum]

I've noticed a lot of people pronouncing an "A" in place of "e" or "i" in some words, particularly when that letter is followed by an "m."

Immediately = Ammediately

Election = Alection.

Anyone else notice this shift in speech?  Has this been around for a while?  I'm finding that older people are also doing this.  I've never noticed it before this year.

[zil2]

I have not noticed this, but then, such changes start in a region, and that is very definitely a southern / rural (aka agricultural) change (as opposed to a northern / urban (aka industrial) change.

[NeuroTypical]

Not sure if I've never heard this ever, or if I've always been saying the words this way and am just now realizing it...

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

Immediately = Ammediately

Election = Alection.

Perhaps you should clarify the pronunciation of the "A":

• apple
• alms
• about
• ate
• air

(I'm guessing "ah" or "uh", but still guessing.)

[The Folk Prophet]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I've noticed a lot of people pronouncing an "A" in place of "e" or "i" in some words, particularly when that letter is followed by an "m."

Immediately = Ammediately

Election = Alection.

Anyone else notice this shift in speech?  Has this been around for a while?  I'm finding that older people are also doing this.  I've never noticed it before this year.

I searched just for fun and found:

[əˈlekSHən]

and

/iˈlek.ʃən/

I think both are fine.

 

[NeuroTypical]

6 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

[əˈlekSHən]

and

/iˈlek.ʃən/

Gesundheit!

[zil2]

In short, we're shunning smart alecks now?

[Carborendum]

23 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I searched just for fun and found:

[əˈlekSHən]

and

/iˈlek.ʃən/

I think both are fine.

 

I see the second one all over.  The first one was hard to find.  The interesting thing was that here, they show the written "schwa" (uh) sound. But the audio sounds more like a short e (eh). 

That was the only dictionary that used the schwa.  All the others only show a short or long e sound (which is written as that block "i" symbol.  I don't know the formal name for it.

Similarly, that same dictionary was the only one that shows a "uh" for immediately.   But the audio sounds like a short i.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Carborendum

[Carborendum]

38 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Perhaps you should clarify the pronunciation of the "A":

• apple
• alms
• about
• ate
• air

(I'm guessing "ah" or "uh", but still guessing.)

"uh" is what I'm hearing that triggers my ears.

"eh" sounds perfectly reasonable for an e.  duh.

But it seems to be a lot more pronounced as an "uh" recently.  People seem to not want to say the long e sound.

It reminds me of the one mission companion who did that with a long a sound.  He could not tell the difference between "sell" and "sale."  He would say, "The store is having a sell on eggs this week."

Edited August 24, 2023 by Carborendum

[Carborendum]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Not sure if I've never heard this ever, or if I've always been saying the words this way and am just now realizing it...

I think that there is a subtle difference between a short "e" or short "i" vs. the schwa (uh).  And when people say the short vowel sounds, that just seems like normal sloppy speech that everyone is guilty of.  But when I hear the uh sound, it just sounds like they don't know how the word is spelled.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Carborendum

[Carborendum]

Wow.  I just heard someone say "uh-legal."  Wow!  It's an epidemic.

[NeuroTypical]

Un apedemic? Ah-oh!

(Seriously, this thread is making me afraid of saying words out loud.)

[Carborendum]

1 minute ago, NeuroTypical said:

Un apedemic? Ah-oh!

(Seriously, this thread is making me afraid of saying words out loud.)

LoL

I recently saw a word written that took me a moment to figure out:  Reargument.

At first, I thought it said "Rear-gument".  But that didn't mean anything.  About 3-4 seconds later I realized it was "Re-argument."  It's a legal term.  Yeah, the written word and the spoken word don't often find a correlation that is easily communicated.

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

People seem to not want to say the long e sound.

There's a reason "uh" is the default unstressed vowel sound (perhaps universally), as well as a common "I don't know what to say, so I'll make a meaningless sound" sound...   It's very easy for us to make that sound.

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

He could not tell the difference between "sell" and "sale."  He would say, "The store is having a sell on eggs this week."

I attribute this, in part at least, to not reading (looking at printed words) enough.  Folks listen a lot, but that won't help you know the difference between "there", "their", and "they're".  A lot of people pronounce "sell" and "sale" the same way.

 

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

It's an epidemic.

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Un apedemic? Ah-oh!

No, uhn uhpademic!  Learn how to spell!

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

Yeah, the written word and the spoken word don't often find a correlation that is easily communicated.

In Russian, if you have a multi-syllable word where the first syllable ends in the same sound as the start of the last syllable, it's common to drop all the syllables in between (aka elide) (in speech).  (As far as I can tell, this isn't considered slang or uneducated, it's just normal speech.  And yes, we do it some, but not as much.)

[Carborendum]

5 minutes ago, zil2 said:

There's a reason "uh" is the default unstressed vowel sound (perhaps universally), as well as a common "I don't know what to say, so I'll make a meaningless sound" sound...   It's very easy for us to make that sound.

Yeah, we're devolving into a nation of "grunters."  No offense to @Grunt.

5 minutes ago, zil2 said:

I attribute this, in part at least, to not reading (looking at printed words) enough.  Folks listen a lot, but that won't help you know the difference between "there", "their", and "they're".  A lot of people pronounce "sell" and "sale" the same way.

No, he actually couldn't tell the difference.  When I wrote it, and explained the difference between a long a and short e, then demonstrated the difference between the two words very slowly and clearly, he still said that he couldn't hear a difference.  Strange that it was only certain words.  He actually pronounced the long a in many other words.

5 minutes ago, zil2 said:

In Russian, if you have a multi-syllable word where the first syllable ends in the same sound as the start of the last syllable, it's common to drop all the syllables in between (aka elide) (in speech).  (As far as I can tell, this isn't considered slang or uneducated, it's just normal speech.  And yes, we do it some, but not as much.)

OH!  I completely forgot that you spoke Russian.  My son has some questions about saying certain words.  He had hoped he would be able to figure that out when he got to Ukraine.  But... that didn't happen.

Could I send him your way?  I think I still have your email.

[Vort]

32 minutes ago, zil2 said:

There's a reason "uh" is the default unstressed vowel sound (perhaps universally)

In American English, for sure.

I think it has been this way since before my grandparents were born. Unstressed vowels often get schwa'ed, This is true with initial unstressed vowels, especially a and e, and to a lesser extent i. (It seems to me that o and u in the initial unstressed position often retain a non-schwa sound, with o being pronounced either oh [obese] or ah [obsequious] and u usually pronounced uh [unlikely], as opposed to the schwa sound that we sometimes represent as uh but is actually less distinct than that.)

tldr; I don't think this is anything new.

[zil2]

42 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

couldn't hear a difference

Ah, yes, this happens too.  Especially when learning a language that uses a sound your native language doesn't.

43 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

OH!  I completely forgot that you spoke Russian.  My son has some questions about saying certain words.  He had hoped he would be able to figure that out when he got to Ukraine.  But... that didn't happen.

Could I send him your way?  I think I still have your email.

Sure.  In the meantime, tell him this: start with the last character and pronounce it.  Then pronounce the last two characters.  Then the last three, etc. until you reach the first character.  This will almost always result in pronouncing the word correctly.  Note that Ukrainian is not identical to Russian and pronunciation will surely vary as well as actual vocabulary (certainly some of the alphabet is different).

[Carborendum]

23 minutes ago, Vort said:

In American English, for sure.

I think it has been this way since before my grandparents were born. Unstressed vowels often get schwa'ed, This is true with initial unstressed vowels, especially a and e, and to a lesser extent i. (It seems to me that o and u in the initial unstressed position often retain a non-schwa sound, with o being pronounced either oh [obese] or ah [obsequious] and u usually pronounced uh [unlikely], as opposed to the schwa sound that we sometimes represent as uh but is actually less distinct than that.)

tldr; I don't think this is anything new.

Funny you should mention that.  I just heard someone say [ubsequeus].

[Carborendum]

9 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Ah, yes, this happens too.  Especially when learning a language that uses a sound your native language doesn't.

Sure.  In the meantime, tell him this: start with the last character and pronounce it.  Then pronounce the last two characters.  Then the last three, etc. until you reach the first character.  This will almost always result in pronouncing the word correctly.  Note that Ukrainian is not identical to Russian and pronunciation will surely vary as well as actual vocabulary (certainly some of the alphabet is different).

Oh, no.  It is that he's having trouble with some Biblical words.  I didn't really understand.  But he said something like a phrase or word that is very common in the Bible simply isn't spoken.  I'm not sure if I'm relaying it correctly.  He tried explaining it.  But this phenomenon simply doesn't exist in any language I've ever studied.

[zil2]

8 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Oh, no.  It is that he's having trouble with some Biblical words.  I didn't really understand.  But he said something like a phrase or word that is very common in the Bible simply isn't spoken.  I'm not sure if I'm relaying it correctly.  He tried explaining it.  But this phenomenon simply doesn't exist in any language I've ever studied.

Huh.  Well, no clue.  Happy to watch my email, though, and help if I can.

[Carborendum]

16 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Huh.  Well, no clue.  Happy to watch my email, though, and help if I can.

I sent him your email address.  I said that you worked in Russia as part of the US Embassy or something like that.   I don't remember the details of your job there.

Do you have knowledge of Biblical Russian? 

This issue came up when we were comparing modern English with KJV English.  Then we got to other languages where it isn't as big a deal.  But he said that there is this minor thing that is prevalent throughout the Bible.  But he was told that when reading it, you don't really pronounce it or something.  But given the re-route to Utah instead of Ukraine, he never really got to ask in more depth.

[zil2]

2 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Do you have knowledge of Biblical Russian? 

Not specifically, but the Church's Library app has a Russian translation I can use, if needed.

3 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

But he said that there is this minor thing that is prevalent throughout the Bible.  But he was told that when reading it, you don't really pronounce it or something.

Sounds interesting.  Probably some idiomatic thing - like they have words for "possess" or "own", but don't really use them.  Instead they say, for example (and translating literally): "At me there is car."  (They don't have "the" or "a" or "an"; in some cases, the "there is" might even be left out.)

[NeuroTypical]

I saw some Japanese-learning-to-speak-English videos a while back.  Pretty interesting.   From what I understand, it's nigh impossible for a native Japanese person to end a word with a consonant.  

Coke = Coak-u
Asparagus = Ah-spaer-u-gu-su
Spider Man = Sapaidu Maa

So a brilliant English teacher will teach just plain old dropping the consonants.  

"I want some green tea and steak, please"
"I wantu som-ah green-u tea and steak-u, pleas-u"

"Drop the consonants and try again."
"I wan so gree tee and stea, pleas-e"

It's amazing how much that last sentence can sound like a native English speaker (except for the please, which remains a little stubborn).

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by NeuroTypical

[zil2]

26 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

From what I understand, it's nigh impossible for a native Japanese person to end a word with a consonant.  

Like a native Spanish speaker and words that start with the letter s followed by another consonant - they always want an "e" in front.

[NeuroTypical]

7 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Like a native Spanish speaker and words that start with the letter s followed by another consonant - they always want an "e" in front.

Snoopy = Esnupi.

I remember that from high school!