'English After RP' with Dr Geoff Lindsey

Geoff pointed out that my slide at the beginning says that the book came out in 2018, whereas it was actually 2019 - but we mention this at the start of the conversation.
Lindsey, G. 2019. 'English After RP - Standard British Pronunciation Today.'
www.amazon.co....
Geoff's CUBE pronunciation dictionary, where you can search for up-to-date transcriptions of modern southeastern British English pronunciation: cubedictionary....
Geoff's blog: www.englishspe...
Geoff's KZbin channel: / drgeofflindsey-speechc...
His video on phonetic symbols: • Why these English phon...
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My own video on IPA, phones and phonemes: • A Beginner's Guide to ...

[@Ateesh6782]

“… to have a little chat” sounds like a British understatement right off the bat - hell yeah, I am ready! Bring it ooon! :) ❤️

[@golden-63]

*My 2 favorite KZbinrs that make videos about English. Great collaboration!*

[@viviandarkbloom8847]

yeah, sometimes life is not so bad.

[@bustavonnutz]

You keep claiming not to be a linguist but you've honestly done more to educate the public about linguistics than most degree holders & academics in the subject. Seeing you get/maintain respect from others in the field is heartwarming to say the least; you deserve the recognition for sure.

[@AustinRiggsFire]

Simon: "I'm not a linguist, I've just spent years studying linguistics"

[@caseykafka5009]

thats not really how accreditation works

[@caseykafka5009]

@@AustinRiggsFire buying a house doesn't make you an architect

[@caseykafka5009]

@@AustinRiggsFire buying a house doesn't make you an architect

[@F1nnyF6]

​@caseykafka5009 this is such a poor analogy. Sure, buying a house doesn't make you an architect, but studying architecture as an amateur for years without gaining accreditation can still give you much of the skills and knowledge that an accredited architect would have. And linguistics specifically is certainly a field where one can learn all the knowledge you would gain in a linguistics degree through dedicated amateur study, which Simon has evidently done.

[@Fenditokesdialect]

I was really interested in whether you could look at the shift of a single speaker's voice over their lifetime, like David Attenborough for example? Seeing as he's a wealth of recordings to go off of and sounds very different now from when he did say in the 50s and 60s

[@overlordnat]

One thing I’ve noticed about Attenborough is that he uses the pronunciations ‘zeebra’ and ‘Keenya’ for ‘zebra’ and ‘Kenya’ instead of the standard British ‘zebbra’ and ‘Kennya’. His pronunciations of these words actually sound quite a lot like American ones but it’s also the traditional u-RP pronunciation that you’ll hear in old films, I think he must be he only English person still alive who says it like that now.

[@Fenditokesdialect]

@@overlordnat I haven't heard this? Could you find a link to a recording of him with a timestamp showcasing this?

[@caboose202ful]

+ that's a really interesting idea!

[@mikebmcl]

@@overlordnat Not quite sure where you got "Keenya" for Kenya as being an American pronunciation. While there are likely people who do say it that way in the US, I pronounce it and have only ever heard it pronounced like Ben or hen. Except possibly in old movies, though I can't recall any specific example. I think the "key"-like pronunciation is an antiquated British pronunciation. That said, "zeebra", like as in "bee", is quite accurate as a description of a common American pronunciation.

[@EnigmaticLucas]

@@overlordnat "Kenya" is typically pronounced with DRESS in American English, just like in British English (I personally pronounce it with KIT instead, but that's because my dialect has the pin-pen merger)

[@richardforster5394]

The mutual affection between these two is quite lovely.

[@benedyktjaworski9877]

Regarding the /aɪ/ diphthong - I remember exactly the same thing. As a middle-school Polish learner of English, I was being taught phonemic transcription of some English words, and doing an exercise I wrote this as /aj/, the teacher corrected me to /aɪ/ and insisted on this and I really couldn’t understand why I’m supposed to write that. I also remember the teacher didn’t have an explanation except for “that’s the diphthong in English” (I guess “that’s the traditional symbol used for English” would have been fair; but I remember the way he responded sounded as if I was completely off phonetically while /aɪ/ was the truth; seems I wasn’t *that* off after all).

[@marioluigi9599]

Lol that's trauma

[@dazzlebeakstudios1231]

It’s very surprising to hear that you were taught English pronunciation with IPA transcription in middle school. Is this common in ESL education in Poland?

[@benedyktjaworski9877]

@@dazzlebeakstudios1231 That was in a private language school lesson, I don’t remember doing any IPA in public school lesson in middle school. But we had some IPA transcriptions in high-school. It wasn’t a big focus of the lessons though - but some rough basics of IPA were introduced.

[@entertainwill4917]

I chuckled at when they fixed the camera at 32:39 and Geoff asks 'what were we talking about?' and Simon says 'retirement'. out of context it sounded like a snippet of a very different conversation!

[@oravlaful]

in most dialects of brazilian portuguese coda has completely vocalised, so "nacional" and "berimbau" rhyme. Oh! just now got to the part where Geoff mentions it haha

[@nomadicmonkey3186]

I've been a longtime fan of Simon and being an ESL speaker slightly more obsessed with pronunciation than most people, super in-detail phonology stuff is exactly right up my alley. So this video feels like specifically made for me 💝💝💝

[@benw9949]

(A year later) -- I found Dr. Geoff Lindsey's channel and subscribed, and I'm so glad. His channel is clear and enjoyable. Simon Roper's channel always has something inter4esting, linguistically and otherwise. I'm glad they got together her to talk. Simon has done a lot to make English and other linguistics more well known and popular for viewers / listeners, even if he doesn't consider himself a linguist specialist. And Dr. Lindsey's work is very much appreciated. -- I'm an anaateur with interest in languages and linguistics. Even when I may add an opinion, I hope it's more adding to the discussion than refuting or confronting anyone. Thanks yuo both for great videos an engaging talks.

[@ElTuxemo]

Absolutely love how a little Merseyside edge creeps into Dr. Geoff's voice when he's talking about his Liverpudlian youth!

[@БогданКостюченко-ц4о]

The symbol "æ" has a long history behind it. It used to be a letter in Old English called "ash", which stood for the same [æ] sound as the IPA symbol. As far as I know, it's still used in Norwegian and Danish for the same [æ] sound. The symbol reflects the nature of the sound, which is between how the letter A and the letter E were pronounced in Latin and are still pronounced in many languages. Please don't replace it with a [ɛ] with a diacritic!

[@pattap2826]

Sorry, but I can’t hear the difference between /ɛ/ and /æ/ at least in American english.

[@БогданКостюченко-ц4о]

​@@pattap2826 That's because of /æ/-raising: en.wikipedia.org/wiki//%C3%A6/_raising#:~:text=In%20the%20sociolinguistics%20of%20the,a%20raising%20of%20the%20tongue. In North American accents the DRESS vowel and the TRAP vowel are often distinguished by diphthongisation of the latter because [æ] often becomes [ɛə] (which is the old-fashioned RP SQUARE vowel, by the way). You can hear the difference between [ɛ] and [æ] on the recordings in Wikipedia (it's subtle, but audible): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_vowel_chart_with_audio In the six months that passed since I wrote my comment I've changed my opinion that the symbol [æ] is really important for describing English pronunciation (at least British), though, because I realised that the cardinal [a] is not the same as my native /a/. You see, I didn't accept at first that the Southern British TRAP vowel is really /a/ because it usually sounds different from my native /a/ (although the Irish TRAP vowel sounds the same as my native /a/), but I then I learnt that the most common open vowel in world languages is actually [ä]-the sound between CV 4, [a], and CV 5, [ɑ], and that the sound described phonemically as /a/ in phonology of different languages is often not exactly cardinal [a], but Southern British TRAP vowel is the true [a] nowadays.

[@jakewhittaker1145]

I'm really enjoying this chat! Just sat with a bit of red wine, mumbling "near", "goat", "neaaarly" over and over again 😂😂

[@derrick021]

no, you are not

[@jakewhittaker1145]

@@derrick021 well not now, but I was at the time

[@Catonius]

That's what I was doing before I watched the video.

[@RobBCactive]

@@jakewhittaker1145 You should double the wine dose and re-run the 2 Ronnies bumpkin sketches and mimic them 😆😆

[@RobBCactive]

Cold white wine but my near still rhymes with here, while nearly and merely rhyme too, I think I'm a reductionist. Have to move my mind some miles north for row-und 2 OK so I schlowed doon und said ear and near proply. 😉😉

[@elianasteele553]

I really I appreciate your videos, Simon. I really love the way you approach these subjects and I love how you film in nature. So subtle and refined!

[@nicolasglemot6760]

The cool thing about Portuguese is that it actually has both kinds of L-vocalisations, which will give us some cool alternations when this is all completed in the near future, such as the "-al" suffix going to "-au", by contrast with its plural equivalent "-ais", although they both stem from an L sound. Funnily enough, this is the exact opposite of what you see in French for words that end in "-ail" in the singular and "-aux" in the plural.

[@computergician]

The /l/ vocalized to an [u] only apears in Brazil, PT-PT speakers say final /l/ as a dark n not as a unrouded back vowel

[@shnen2]

-ais comes from -ales, though (animais < animales), so the front vowel isn't just from the l

[@lindsayheyes925]

I am a dinosaur from the time of Oliver Postgate voicing The Tale of Noggin the Nog, and David Attenborough meeting uncontacted natives of Java. Having learnt my own language in Malta, the accents that I returned to in England, I loved. And so I have always been falsely accused of being "posh", borne witness to English people discarding some the beauty of English accents like Greggs packaging thrown out of car windows along a motorway. RIP RP.

[@beepboop204]

i cannot thank you enough for your amazing content!

[@unburningflame]

It's cute seeing you so smiley and happy, Simon.

[@desmorgens3120]

One day, I watched videos on KZbin. Freddie Mercury was being interviewed by a British reporter. I paid attention to Freddie Mercury's speaking Standard English with a Received Pronunciation accent. His English pronunciation was heard beautiful to my ears. Long time after that, I watched a video. There, I saw Freddie Mercury's nephew's speaking English in an interview. To my surprise, he did not speak English like his uncle did. He spoke English while employing the glottal stop very very often. I did not understand him at all. My teacher of English did not speak English like that. As a non-native speaker, I got confused. Freddie Mercury's nephew is not alone. Other young British people speak English with too much glottal stop. This is what people call "Estuary English". It is a combination between RP and Cockney. RP is the dialect of the educated and Cockney was the opposite one. Estuary English has replaced RP as the spoken form of Standard English. The same happens to Indonesian language. About thirty years ago, the government demanded that every Indonesian speak Standard Indonesian with a Radio Republik Indonesia accent when talking to the public or older people. That "RRI Indonesian" is the dialect employed by the newsreaders when reading the news, a plain and very clear Indonesian. It is the dialect of the educated. But today, the teenagers or the young people talk in the dialect of Jakarta. It is a mixture between Standard Indonesian and the Batavian ("Betawi") dialect, which has been considered to be the impolite dialect of the uneducated. Moreover, the Jakartan dialect has been spread throughout the country via local soap operas and other activities by private television stations and the mass media. The dialect of Jakarta has replaced Standard Indonesian in its spoken form.

[@jen43072]

Simon - I'm a native Midwesterner in the US, and I can sympathize with having one parent with a specific pronunciation and one without. Over here, there is a wash/warsh split, but as far as I can tell, only for this word. My dad says our first president was George Warshington and my mom says "Washington". I have always said wash, but with an "aw" as it is commonly said where I grew up. If you go just a short way north of where I grew up, the "aw" is more of an "ah" or even "a" as in cat. Chicago and the Great Lakes accents are distinctively more 'nasal' in this way (or that is how I characterize it). Anyway, loved this conversation with Dr Lindsey. It really helps me find patterns in the myriad of accents you all have in such a small (relatively speaking) country. Cheers.

[@RichardDCook]

West Virginia chiming in, my Grandmother (b.1896) and others of her generation put R's in quite a bit, of course "holler" (hollow) "feller" (fellow) are well known but my Grandmother also said "how-ARE-yuh" (Hawai'i).

[@lorrainevart8827]

Interesting As a European I can usually only distinguish two American acents. Northern and Southern (quite distinctive). im.sure lots !ore

[@zak3744]

I'm pretty sure me and my mates coming of age in East Anglia twenty years were doing what your mate Josh does. We'd have 'w' sounds for 'l' as in the "There'll be another one soon" example, and a lot of the time in natural speech it would fade out completely (although I think if you asked us we'd probably think we were putting the letter l / 'w' sound there). It's hard to self-analyse (I'm sitting here repeating it to myself and sounding like a nutter!), but I think that "There be another one soon" and "There'll be another one soon" wouldn't be exact homophones, even though they'd contain the same sounds. I think in "there'll be" there is a tiny, weeny little beat, a gap left where the sound should go even though it doesn't (or rather I think the "air" monophthong of "there" is extended before the 'b' of "be" to fill the space where the 'w' sound should be). And that rhythmic space for the missing 'w' sound isn't there in "there be". So the difference is an almost imperceptible one of cadence. I hope that isn't just a a figment of my imagination because I think there is an extra phoneme there even though it isn't expressed! Does that sound mad or not? 😆 (It wouldn't happen in your other example of "We'll go tomorrow" but that's only because I've got a different vowel in "we'll" and "we"!)

[@DawaLhamo]

If I say it fast, it's almost like "Thell be another one..." rhymes with dell or sell.

[@jen43072]

Even in the central US, I remove part of the word of "there'll" and reduce it down to "thell". :) Interesting, since I am very definitely a rhotic speaker. Thanks for making me think about this one.

[@grindanlfwine4153]

I agree - I was brought up in rural Essex and a bit in Anglia/ Suffolk. There’s a lot to study and take away from the inter regional English spoken there. The diphthongs, contractions and word order is comparatively unusual..

[@jacquelinevanderkooij4301]

Interesting conversation.

[@mechanarwhal7830]

Hearing you talk about l vocalisation reminds me of an anecdote - I live in the south east of England and there was a point when, passing a garden, I heard a father talking to a toddler about free will. I was delighted for a moment by the early introduction to complex topics, but then the conversation continued and I realised he was actually talking about a three wheel toy car...

[@mechanarwhal7830]

(I realise there is no l vocalisation in the anecdote, it was the way I recalled him saying "free wiw" that reminded me of it)

[@grahamh.4230]

Lol (or low)

[@НектоНеизвестный-в1р]

Я что-то не понял, по какой логике вы перепутали эти слова? Спасибо =)

[@izumiamv7280]

Talking about the "here" or "near" vowel (at 52:59), for me as a native German, I didn't even think about the possibility that the "r" in "here" or "near" disappeared and the vowel changed into the schwa diphthong in RP, since in German a similar thing happens with "r"s like in "hier" (here) or "er" (he) after every vowel so clearly the r turned into a vowel and didn't disappear. In English it's an interesting possibility though.

[@cosettapessa6417]

Simon is dressed like him. An elder within.

[@lucacolombo7603]

Just read the book. As a learner, it was really enlightening.

[@thedialectarchive5379]

I think the idea at 47:12 sounds great! You should definitely do that! Honestly I don't think the majority of Northern people are aware of the foot-strut split or would notice if someone got them the wrong way round.

[@alisonmorgan2515]

Simon - I have learned a lot from your discussion with Dr Lindsey - thank you! This has established your credentials in a wide field! ( I'm learning Old English, and already know you from your helpful videos on that subject.) I will certainly follow up people/books referred to. Starting with 'a good ear' really helps in this area, not just for an academic understanding. I found myself in a practical situation in the girls grammar school where I landed as an expat cockney. I realised I needed - back in the mid '60's - to change my accent - and quickly - prompted by the titters from teachers and fellow students. It wasn't quick, however, that would have been comic, but I got there gradually, and am now living in Yorkshire where people think I'm 'posh'. So these general perceptions persist outside of an 'RP' community. 😃

[@kamakirinoko]

Well, as an American who went to prep (Feltonfleet) and Public school (Charterhouse-same as Genesis! Yay!) as a kid I was having to change accents every time I came home, and I had to do it consciously-changing "hahf" back to "haff" and "cahn't" back to "can't," otherwise I felt alien. Then when I got back to school I'd half to change it again . . . and when I left just before O Levels (I just couldn't take it any more! I turned around at Brussels airport back to Africa while biding time during a blizzard on my way back to London; just hopped the evening flight back to Kinshasa! True story) it must have taken a full ten years until all traces of a British accent had left my diction. At least, that's when I remember that the "Are you from England?" comments had faded out, although my intonation remains English to this day, around 50 years later! So I find myself uniquely qualified to distinguish between the various accents in England, although I couldn't place them as a Briton could "Oh, e's from Wolverhampton, inn'e?" but rather "Oh, he's from the North" or "From London. My schools were both in Surrey, although I don't think that had anything to do with what I understand to now be "Public schoolboy English," which seemed to be a variation on RP wiv' a bi' uh' . . . dunno, rayally. But I HAVE noticed that the RP of my youth has shifted to the RP which Sir Geoff seems to have, which is more kind of an "Everyman, but highly educated"-type of pronunciation that you might expect from, say, Peter Gabriel. Sorry, I have gone on a bit, haven't I? But wait-there's more! My Harvard-educated father-he bombed the Germans from B-24s out of Norfolk-had a touch of the "International American" kind of fake British accent that people like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and that lot seems to have. There's a whole bit of literature about it-sorry, can't remember hat it's called now. But Simon, today is when I ran across your fascinating videos, and Geoff-my brother's named Geoff, so I pronounce it well-I'm off to check out your channel. It's been an interesting talk! -Nick

[@varbalvarbal]

Mid-Atlantic accent, right?

[@mencken8]

There are few justifications for You Tube, in my mind. This channel is one.

[@MikeOfKorea]

When I lived in Korea, the vowel 애 was Romanized by "ae", and it corresponds to the sound notated /æ/. The Koreans were never happy with English speakers' pronunciation of 애, but I could not hear the difference! Henry Higgins would be disappointed, I'm sure.

[@SarcastSempervirens]

I really like this homely, back yard, hot tea in winter, sweater atmosphere for these conversations.

[@nbell63]

Good lord - it's like you're chatting with Malcolm McDowell's sober brother! 😯

[@DawaLhamo]

Great chat, Simon. I look forward to hearing the rest. Lots to chew on.

[@williamcooke5627]

I have *always* 'tensed' y in 'happy' and such words.

[@ajs41]

I'm not an RP speaker myself but I quite like it nonetheless, and I'd be sorry if it disappeared altogether. There's undoubtedly been a concerted campaign against RP over the last 20 years or so, with TV and radio stations making a deliberate point of replacing all their RP announcers with people with non-RP regional accents. They've gone from one extreme to the other in my opinion. (Okay, I know that RP is just as much a regional accent as any other accent in many people's view). My absolute favourite accent is probably the way the former BBC newsreader Jan Leeming spoke when she was presenting the news in the 1980s. There are plenty of videos available of her on KZbin.

[@lepolhart3242]

RP is a young accent and only a few hundred years old. It would be a shame if it died out but 97% of British people speak with regional accents like myself. I've never had a problem being understood as I speak slowly and clearly esepcially if people have disabilities or are foreigners. I've never wanted to have an RP accent and am proud of my regional accent so if people don't like it, they can take a hike in my opinion. Some snobbish people judge you for not having RP those people are not worth bothering with.

[@benmartin6644]

@@lepolhart3242 in my experience, the vast majority of young people in the South of England don't speak with a regional accent

[@talideon]

It's an artificial accent, and few people are raised speaking it. What's actually happened is that people have stopped learning it rather than a deliberate effort being made to replace RP announcers. You're witnessing a natural die-off of RP's visibility as people retire and move onto other jobs.

[@talideon]

@@benmartin6644 Then what accent are they speaking with? Because the accents of the South of England are still regional accents, just not "regional" accents.

[@thormusique]

Absolutely wonderful discussion, thank you!

[@信者の男]

coming back after this Geoff fella improved his youtube channel. Definitely I'll be reading his book.

[@MrGalpino]

More Lancashire anecdotes: L vocalisation is considered old fashioned, such as in Ewd Ned's Tavern, an 18th century themed restaurant (I think). When I was a kid people called school 'schoo' /skʉw/

[@hbowman108]

I take it South African accents with the DRESS-TRAP merger are "foreign". Quick Googling also turned up that they are merged in Singlish, which is the actual reference used in Geoff Lindsey's video on the subject.

[@bob___]

Reacting to this terrific conversation from a North American perspective, there is a frontalized O in the speech of the area from Philadelphia to Washington DC. This can be heard among speakers who may also pronounce "eagle" with a short I sound ("iggle"). (For what it's worth, this area has historically always had rhotic speech, unlike the coastal areas of the Northeastern and Southeastern US.) On the brief discussion of whether North American speakers distinguish the vowel sounds of "bitter" and "bidder," I believe this is usually the case if you listen closely, but it may be done in different ways. The best known is Canadian raising, in which the vowel is raised before "voiceless" consonants, including the intervocalic T among speakers for whom it is voiced/flapped. I find myself having a distinction along the lines of Canadian raising but perhaps somewhat different (more to do with vowel length than vowel position). Even though it's not precisely the same as Canadian raising, I seem to maintain a distinct between "bitter" and "bidder," but it's possible that I'm the only one who hears it. (I say that, not in jest, because I believe there are sounds which I articulate so slightly that no one hears them -- like Simon's acquaintance who drops the Ls in "the(r)e'll be" and "we'll be.")

[@yelenairwin1717]

Very interesting! I'm a non-native speaker living in the northwestern US, and my "bidder" is distinct and appears sightly deeper in tone.

[@steveneardley7541]

I'm from D.C. Yes my bidder and bitter are subtly different. I think with bitter there is a raising in the i sound. I generally disagree with English KZbinrs who maintain that the American t is often voiced as a d. I don't think it is, but they are fairly close.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

31:23: Ah, you're too young to think about retirement 😉

[@OlgasBritishFells]

I missed your videos! I am having a cup of tea and enjoying watching it now.

[@primalaspie]

I know this isn't why it was included, but having the ash character included is quite helpful for transcribing inland southern us accents. Many (especially younger) speakers have a monophthongized PRICE vowel with very few large changes in vowel quality, meaning that there is a distinction between: ɛ for DRESS æ for TRAP a for PRICE

[@albertoalamamoran6082]

Great conversation thanks a lot to Dr. Lindsey for his very educacional talk..and also thank you to Simon Roper..You´ve made a fantastic interview for a SUPER interviewee. Regards from Trujillo_ Perú.

[@Dr_Mel]

For the uninitiated: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

[@user-bf8ud9vt5b]

This is the most English thing I have ever watched.

[@Stigtoes]

In East Lancashire (now know for our rhotic Rs) I can remember in the 1950's & 60's when a goal was scored the cry went up "It's thee're"

[@timpackard1015]

NEAR-tensing?? I'm a bit baffled right now because this seems kind of like a big deal and this is the first time I'm seeing a phonetician refer to it. Thanks for the awesome dialogue!

[@MarkRosa]

Just bought the book; you've made a sale with this video!

[@Yotanido]

Huh... I'm a native German speaker. I can't really tell if I have this solche/seuche merger, but I can absolutely see how this would come about. If someone said seuche instead of solche, I don't think I would even notice unless someone pointed it out.

[@oravlaful]

as a non native i've always thought of "near", "here", "year", "ear" etc as disyllabic words

[@tristanholderness4223]

53:10 I'm very much in the camp of the schwa in these diphthongs (and "triphthongs") being an underlying r (although I'd also go further and identify the non-high long vowels, and schwas, at least in final position, as having an underlying r). It allows you to explain intrusive r much more concisely imo. Like Dr Lindsey says though, that's very definitely a question of phonology not phonetics

[@RobBCactive]

But the Prof's linking r idea avoids the need for the non-rhotic rules. It's hard to explain to stare - staring and to star - starring if /r/ is intrinsic to the vowel, nobody rolls the r and why are stare and stair homophones if spelling means anything

[@tristanholderness4223]

Why should spelling be an indication of the underlying phonology? Spelling is an indicator (and an imperfect one) of the phonology at an earlier stage of the language, when it was set, and not of the current phonology My position would be that stair stare star are /stɛɹ/ /stɛɹ/ /stæɹ/ at the underlying level, but that these surface as /stɛː/ /stɛː/ /stɑː/ Linking and intrusive r are then entirely analogous to the /j/ and /w/ that get repeated when other diphthongs are followed by a vowel e.g. buying /bɑɪ̯.jɪŋ/ so we have staring /stɛɹ.ɹɪŋ/ and starring /stæɹ.ɹɪŋ/ which are ofc realised as [stɛː.ɹɪŋ] and [stɑː.ɹɪŋ]

[@helenamcginty4920]

I absolutely love the camera's going to sleep.

[@th60of]

Re: l-vocalisation in German: I do think l-vocalisation before consonant has become more common recently, though it's still frowned upon by purists. It has, however, long been a feature of Bavarian; cf. the Bavarian Wikipedia entries Oipn (Alpen, Alps), Mejcha (melken, to milk), Kuitua (Kultur, culture).

[@adrianmg7359]

I'm from northern Germany and my accent doesn't have it, although thinking about it, maybe it sneaks in before [ç] sometimes.

[@screwaccountnames]

As a resident of Vienna, I can confirm that l-vocalisation is a very real thing here, although not in formal speech. However, I think that in dialects that change the pronunciation of "solche" from /sɔlxɛ/ to /sɔɪçɛ/, speakers in turn shift their pronunciation of "Seuche" as well, opening the diphthong up from /sɔɪçɛ/ to something like /søeçɛ/ or even monophthongising it entirely. Also in broader dialects, the mutation doesn't stop at "soiche", rather ending up as something like "soichate", "soichde", or "soichdane", depending on the speaker and grammatical context ("soichde" = singular and "soichane" = plural for the speakers I'm thinking of).

[@overlordnat]

Another thing I could say is that to many in the West Midlands (especially those coming from in or around Birmingham, such as myself) ‘bold’ and ‘bowled’ don’t rhyme and that, even though they are distinct to me, to many others in the West Mids ‘bold’ and ‘bald’ do merge (either both as ‘bold’ or both as ‘bald’). To put it another way, the way I say ‘old’ is very different to the pronunciations given by both Simon and the Professor and is actually closer to how many Scottish people say it.

[@ChaosXLR]

I went to Uni with someone from Birmingham (who didn't actually sound like a Brummy), who thought that "to boldly go" from Star Trek was a pun because Patrick Stewart was bald.

[@overlordnat]

@@ChaosXLR 😂

[@RichardDCook]

At 28:13 so interesting when I switch back and forth between California and West Virginia (we moved back and forth growing up) I might be overthinking it but I think West Virginia is a clear dipthong "NEE-ur" (the "see" vowel) while California is "nir" (the "it" vowel). Ditto for "ear" in the word "earache" for example.

[@mariambajelidze8515]

Thanks 🧡

[@lakrids-pibe]

Hello from Denmark. We use the letter *Ææ* in our normal alphabet, but confusingly we use it for a different sound. The english words *'cat'* and *'Alfred'* is written *'kat'* and *'Alfred'* , and we pronounce them exactly the same! (Compared to 'George' which has the danish form 'Jørgen') We use the letter *æ* for the sound in *æble* (apple), *bæst* (beast) and *gæst* (guest) - and the english pronounciation of 'guest' is the same as the danish. The international phonetic alphabet is WRONG! Grrrr!

[@zitloeng8713]

some sound changes occur firstly among women and inherited by children, that may explain why women seem to have more modern pronunciation when comparing historical recordings

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

How the hell you've got that voice that deep????????

[@elissafanzo1124]

I’ve been watching House of the Dragon. This is July 2024. I find it amusing how American KZbinrs from the Midwest can’t distinguish between Erryk and Arryk Cargyll’s names. The dress ad trap distinction describes it perfectly. They’re pronouncing both these vowels as in air.

[@PaulBennett]

56:00 makes me think of the Polish Ł, and leads me down the dreaded path toward developing a New Perfect Teaching Alphabet (TM).

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

I think of the Scouse accent with the fronted GOAT as the "Cilla Black" Scouse. In Brookside terms, the fronted one is Jen Ellison and her character, while the more old-fashioned back one is Jimmy Corkhill. Also Craig Phillips from Big Brother 1. As for the SQUARE-NURSE merger (in favour of NURSE), that shows up in Cilla Black and Paul McCartney but not necessarily the other Beatles. Also in some non-Scousers such as Stuart Maconie.

[@frankharr9466]

Nice discussion.

[@guidofaria6721]

Simon, meu filho. You have an amazing voice. Parabens! Some of my native language in the mix. They are nice though.

[@NathanaelFosaaen]

that L vocalization is REALLY well represented in a lot of Black American accents on the ends of words especially.

[@zooblestyx]

As a non-native speaker, I'm confused by how Notherners pronounce "fair play" closer to "fur play". Is this a veiled form of kink-shaming the Welsh?

[@amandachapman4708]

In much of Lancashire, hair and hare are pronounced huur, care is cuur, pair and pear are puur...

[@jakewhittaker1145]

I'm from Oldham, which is still often considered part of Lancashire, but is now part of Greater Manchester (I think there was a change in county boundaries in the 70s). There are definitely a lot of people who say fur and fair with the same pronunciation. I do make the distinction, and I think most of my friends would do the same. I'm not sure on what grounds the distinction is made, because both my mum and dad distinguish also, but my grandma on mum's side says "fur = fair", but I don't think my dad's mum would have, but then again she was from Ancoats (further into central Manchester).

[@Danilaschannel]

A good example for front-L vocalization is Italian blancus -> bianco

[@biscuit715]

I'm getting very similar vibes of me talking to my professors! A really interesting chat

[@garyfrancis6193]

Perhaps the first problem in learning a language is you buy a book. Then you are faced with a double problem of trying to understand the language and relating it written form to actually speaking it. Korean is fairly easy as each letter has only one sound. English is more difficult as vowels and even consonants can have different sounds and spelling than is inconsistent. There is an inner logic but it is not universally applied.

[@OlgasBritishFells]

Sorry, I am going to comment while I am watching it. How do they put all this in the book. Do they have to describe in words how the symbols (transcribtion) are pronounced? And can you explain in written words, without showing it, about the differences in intonation? I wonder how it's done with a written word.

[@pannekook2000]

So just a small experiment, but in looking at that vowel chart I went and asked, well why is there more subdivision between e/ɛ/æ/a than between e/ɪ/i, and just in trying to make and distinguish those vowels my intuition is that in the low front vowels you don't encounter the opening of the mouth. So really, there is a symmetry here, where æ is symmetrical with ɪ, but ɪ moves back in the mouth because otherwise the tongue would block the opening of the teeth if a completely front vowel tried to occupy that theoretical space.

[@lindsayheyes925]

I am a dinosaur from the time of Oliver Postgate voicing The Tale of Noggin the Nog, and David Attenborough meeting uncontacted natives of Java. Having learnt my own language in Malta, the accents that I returned to in England, I loved. And so I have always been falsely accused of being "posh", borne witness to English people discarding some the beauty of English accents like Greggs packaging thrown out of car windows along a motorway.

[@NicholasShanks]

For me, near is a diphthong, but nearly is a monophthong, unless I am emphasising it!

[@harrynewiss4630]

The 'w' for 'l' swap is visible in some speakers in the south/south west too.

[@_volder]

I've been wondering for quite a while why I keep seeing "ɪ" where "i" clearly belongs! I wasn't aware of any accent in which those words would actually be pronounced that way, so my best guess at its origin was that people tend to go for the most unusual-looking option they can find in IPA because they feel like making things look unusual is just the way IPA works. (I've also made the same guess to explain people using "ɔ" where "o" belongs, for example.) Also, I'm surprised that "foot/strut" is a split rather than a merger, but I can't recall a sound reason why I thought it was a merger. I wonder if it was just because I was so used to everybody in my life having the split that, when I finally heard people without it, my perspective made the split seem to be the default in my mind.

[@mgevirtz]

Welcome Orthography of Phonetic Transcription in the Anglosphere

[@gertrudlehmann4869]

Many thanks!

[@lewdwig]

Estuary is the new RP. Even HM has glottal stops nowadays.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

27:10: I tried to pronounce "goal" fronted (like "goat"), and ended up saying "girl" instead. I wonder if the potential contrast with the "irl" or "url" sound had something to do with the process too.

[@shnen2]

I end up saying 'go' in an american accent!

[@dixgun]

“English After RP” needs to be published in audiobook form, please.

[@lepannean4231]

Regarding the discussion around 44:00 about the lack of [ɛjə] - there's something in that range in the speech of at least some older Maine speakers in the US, so e.g. for 'there' you might have [ðɛjə] ~ [ðejə].

[@Vargskinn]

The German was pretty on point, by the way. Interesting for me, because I am very conscious of me "wrong", i.e. not vocalized enough or sometimes just too German, "L" when I speak English. I think some native English speakers sometimes overdo the German vocalized "L", though. It tends to be a pretty good way of spottin someone pretending to be a native speaker of German in an English language movie, or of spotting a native English speaker as opposed to someone else who learned German quite well coming from another language.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Oh my gosh, I think that was probably the most hilariously awkward intro I've seen to date in a KZbin video! 😂 Can relate far too hard to that problem where one hasn't sufficiently scripted or practiced what to say beforehand... 🤭 A really interesting topic though! Hadn't thought about the problem of what happens with a still-living language where the pronunciation shift becomes so disparate from the way it's represented theoretically. We often worry about whether or not our reconstructions & representations of dead language are correct, but this feels like something that is perhaps less discussed in linguistic circles...?

[@sumnerevans]

52:01 As an American, I think I say "We'll go tomorrow" with one of those glottal stops. Almost more like "will go tomorrow" but I don't think I say the Ls very much

[@a.b.1994]

So, so interesting. I am a Merseysider that moved to NZ and I have struggled with vowel differences - pen/pin being a regular one.

[@randomdude4669]

The kiwi vowels are quite unique kids being kuds is my favourite

[@RichardDCook]

Hah! In West Virginia they're the same, we have the "pin/pen merger". Oddly, we don't have the word "sit", it's always "set" as in "please set down". We also have the "cot/caught merger".

[@mmmmmmmmmmmmm]

49:59 They're talking about LOT and CLOTH in North American English, and then they mention how the distribution is different there than in the UK, and then Simon says "thought", lol, it's like an unintentional pun

[@duddersrules]

Hey man good shit, keep it up

[@MrGalpino]

Being from Lancashire, the vowel in plaster and master has always been complicated. Some people use /a/ and some people use /ɑː/, regardless of social class. I change it depending on who I'm speaking to.

[@overlordnat]

Interesting 🤔. I used to work in a call centre calling tradesmen around the country for feedback and there was an area of the North East (including Newcastle and Sunderland but IIRC North Yorkshire too) where people INVARIABLY not only said ‘last’ phonetically but said ‘master plasterer’ as ‘mahster plahsterer’, almost like they were from the South!

[@MrGalpino]

@@overlordnat see George Clarke, of Amazing Spaces.

[@overlordnat]

@@MrGalpino Good shout, I’ve found a clip here of him (from Sunderland) saying ‘mahster bedroom’ 02:14 (kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKTEiH6Ma7iLeZI).

[@kijul468]

The disyllabic nature of _near_ and _here_ and _beer_ I noticed and toyed with in making a more phonetic spelling convention for my own speech where I have written it out as two syllables. near > niia here > iia beer > biia _ii_ represents the sound /ɪj/. Also, my speech is /h/-less. *Also, about the L-vocalisation. It seems to be for me that coda /l/ becomes [ɣ].

[@sliverwnd]

I'm from the west country and I have L vocalisation that plays a lot of havoc with the vowels. Fall, full and fool are homophones for me.

[@ajs41]

Interesting.

[@thomasmills3934]

Old fashioned isnt automatically bad...

[@rbsz6202]

Good content!

[@jaccabwa7914]

the ultimate collab

[@thetonyb]

Hi. I’m an English/Spanish speaker from Panama living in Ohio. My wife is from Florida. And seemingly out of nowhere, our children all like to say “waLk” and “taLk”. It’s subtle, but definitely nothing like our “wahk” and “tawk”. Sort of an opposite movement from L vocalization?

[@BobbyHill26]

If you don’t mind me asking, what area of Ohio are you in? I’ve lived here my whole life and go to university here, and I can’t think of anywhere that would say it that way. I don’t really know many people from the northeast quadrant of the state, so it’s more than possible for it to be a regional thing there, but I feel like I’m pretty well exposed to folks from the rest of the state.

[@anthonybennett4868]

@@BobbyHill26 Columbus. I've never heard anyone but my kids say it that way.

[@kesgreen4639]

Perhaps related to the American vocalisation of l in "calm" or "palm?" I also find it fascinating that many Americans do not pronounce the l in "solder."

[@anthonybennett4868]

@@kesgreen4639 Maybe. But I'll tell you one that really surprised me was in Modesto, CA, where they produce a lot of ALL-monds, they called them AH-monds, just like the silent L in salmon.

[@kesgreen4639]

@@anthonybennett4868 that's the accepted pronunciation in UK English too, although I have heard many people pronounce the l.

[@vampyricon7026]

NEAR vowel: I remember hearing Peter Capaldi in an episode of Doctor Who saying it as two syllables /i.ə/

[@bumpty9830]

Great discussion! Love the point that the phoneme only exists in the context of a system, just as the integer One is different from the complex number One. Indeed there can be different analyses of the very same speech that posit different numbers of vowel phonemes (e.g. how many Russian "i" vowels?). And if it's not always clear _how many_ vowel phonemes exist in a given dialect, it certainly isn't possible in general to map phonemes one-to-one between languages. If there are two "i" vowels in Russian, do they correspond exactly to the two "i" vowels of Turkish? I don't think so. And, in my speech (central US) "bitter" and "bidder" are realized identically.

[@sluggo206]

That identical thing probably varies. I'm not sure if I say 'bitter' and 'bidder' the same or not; I may do it both ways. It's definitely a 'd' sound in both cases, and the vowel seems to be the same, but the middle of the tongue in the 'dd' seems to be lower and more vertical, possibly tenser, if that's possible. But 'latter' and 'ladder" are definitely identical.

[@bumpty9830]

Interesting, @@sluggo206! It's a little tough for me to be confident about casually pronouncing "bidder" because it's a word I never use. Latter and Ladder are definitely same for me, too.

[@Rich-on6fe]

When I moved to the Northampton area (from Somerset then Liverpool) I found that young people all talked like they had been watching too much Neighbours. This was present on the goat vowel where the vowel was at the end of the word: no has an ending like nay. I still haven't worked out whether it is something that belongs here.

[@kesgreen4639]

I know what you mean. Certainly plenty of Australian words/phrases became more common ("no worries" and "Uni", for example), as well as the High Rising Terminal. More recently, American imports seem to be dominating, such as the switch in emphasis in words such as default (I would put the stress on the second syllable) and the return of "gotten" (which, as a UK native born in 1970, I had never heard until I saw The Empire Strikes Back).

[@troyrahnedir]

Like a highly evolved episode of The Bill. %P