"Schwa is never stressed" - FALSE

[@luckyluckydog123]

to anybody who thinks that the perfect youtube phonetics video doesn't exist, kindly direct them to this video. Thanks a lot for this gem!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Blush. Thank you.

[@li_tsz_fung]

@@DrGeoffLindsey The content is good. But please keep the clips between you talking short, or even just mute them and talk over them. 5 seconds/3 seconds look quite short in your editing timeline, but it's already too long for a pause between sentences

[@nialltracey2599]

Not perfect, unfortunately. There's a gap in the argument -- he talks about phonemes and allophones but doesn't explicitly address the distinction between "phone" and "phoneme". I mean, it's not that I disagree with his model, I'm just saying he's not fully explained it. Instead he presupposes that anywhere the [ə] phone occurs it represents an /ə/ phoneme. He rushes through a quick argument regarding this at the end, but it isn't fully developed. This is important because "comma" schwa originates as an allophone of many different vowels: eg the O in inforMATion vs inFORM; the E in ADvertise vs adVERTisement. The argument for schwa being a phoneme is that these effects are fossils and etymology, not part of the living language, and the normal native speaker doesn't internally model the relationship... which is something I agree with, I just think it's a vital part of the argument, and it's missing from the video.

[@averageday]

Ok

[@shanemcclain73]

Exactly. The schwa definitely is NOT a "phoneme." It is a phone, the allophonic realization of an unaccented vowel. That's why the schwa should never be represented between slashes (phoneme) but rather between brackets (phone).

[@cyberherbalist]

I once considered entering linguistics as a career, but realised early on that it was more complicated than quantum physics, so became a computer programmer instead. This was an informative and very entertaining video! Vielen Dank, Herr Doktor Geoff!

[@hoi-polloi1863]

The difference between formal languages and natural ones is that natural languages are *way* more fault-tolerant. Look... if you are speaking English and you omit a semicolon, nobody is going to freak out. Now try it in C... ;D Oh, and don't get me *started* on semantic whitespace. Damn you, Python, DAMN YOU!

[@noamtashma2859]

@@hoi-polloi1863 well... in natural language, "whitespace" is semanting too. See, I started this comment with "...", and you knew what it meant.

[@hoi-polloi1863]

@@noamtashma2859 Interestingly, the "..." represents a verbal pause, which is significant. Other uses of whitespaces (ie, how much space if any between words, how many spaces after a colon) are less fraught.

[@AmokBR]

Lol, seems like we have a lit in common

[@Andreas-Kralj]

Same. And with all due respect to those in the linguistic field, the amount that the computer science field pays is higher on average as well, with a lower barrier to entry regarding career opportunities

[@RossLinderman]

Brilliant. I'm an American with a degree in linguistics and I'm pretty sure that every vowel chart I saw in school had ə/ʌ together and nearly smack-dab in the middle. There was no lower and backer for ʌ. Professors told me that schwa was the unstressed variant. I always thought, "Why bother?" There *are* stress marks in the IPA!

[@RolandHutchinson]

Surely you must at some point have seen the IPA chart that is published by the IPA? That (as seen in the video) does have ʌ as an the open-mid unrounded back vowel and ə as central.

[@W_Qimuel]

Indeed, the current IPA chart has /ʌ/ as the unrounded counterpart of /ɔ/.

[@boajch7699]

@@RolandHutchinson Idealized vowels and English vowels are not the same thing though, this can be confusing because the same symbols are used, but that doesn’t mean they make exactly the same sound

[@RolandHutchinson]

@@boajch7699 True, indeed!

[@RobBCactive]

@@boajch7699 What English vowels though? Looking at IPA for "ice" the US version is far more complex than RP. In N.England there's similar multi-phoneme vowels that drift. The written form doesn't set pronunciation of words and vowel changes are the main varying elements of accents. The reference books can't show the real variety and real English speech is very lax on consistent vowels.

[@orlkorrect]

This video just solved an eighteen-year-old mystery for me. When I was in fifth grade (mid-aughts, USA) we were given a series of homework assignments that I think were meant to improve our spelling by pointing out the diverse ways written English represents sound, and to get us to notice patterns so that we could work out the pronunciation of unfamiliar words. If I remember correctly, we'd get a list of words with, for example, the letter A in them (abbey, radio, daily, rapid) and were told to sort them into short-A and long-A. The last one, and the only one to use IPA notation in the instructions, was on /ə/ and /ʌ/. I had no idea what to do. All the words sounded the same to me. I think I got about half of them "wrong," at least as far as the textbook's answer key was concerned, and I never understood why. My teacher couldn't even explain the difference when I asked him.

[@doyouknowkeplertwentytwob4032]

You’re teacher was a buffoon.

[@Lu-dz4oc]

Welcome to the club! 😅

[@Dragon-Believer]

English is the dumbest class in school. We all speak English at the highest level already. Total waste of time. I learned way more about English learning Spanish. If the kids need an English class they have ESL for that. That actually has a purpose.

[@EebstertheGreat]

The long/short distinction doesn't really make sense either, since most Americans don't have long and short vowels. We just have an arbitrary list of vowel qualities (three diphthongs and two monopthongs) declared to be "long," even though we don't hold them any longer than the "short" vowels.

[@poe12]

​@@EebstertheGreatas I watched on a yt channel... was it sound american?... long and short vowels are misconception. I in kite is long while I in kit is short. That's how it was taught to kids in British schools. Yes it's the right channel to say that 😀 (if it's a wild assumption I'll be quickly corrected 😀

[@HughvanZyl]

I never realised (or even really thought about it), but I do have a contrast between ʌ and ə. I've been confused in some of your videos when you used schwa for two sounds that I thought were clearly different, but it makes a lot more sense now.

[@RBaroli]

As a speaker of English as a second language who loves phonetics, this "distinction" had always confused me, but eventually I just accepted the convention of /ə/ being always unstressed and /ʌ/ being always stressed. This video is absolutely brilliant! The script, the editing with all those example clips and, of course, the humour. Your videos and your book, which I recently read, just make me want to learn more and more about phonetics. Please don't stop creating content!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks so much for the kind words and encouragement. It means a lot.

[@ter2710]

Geoffrey is dead wrong here

[@verfuncht]

As a Canadian, I actually find that my pronunciation of the two phonemes is very similar to that of RP, with the exception of word-final (phonemically transcribed as /ə/) is more similar to my pronunciation of /ʌ/ than to my pronunciation of /ə/ in other positions

[@ter2710]

@@verfuncht, yes, I noticed that. Maybe it is a trend. Like the girl valley talk. The point being to make the final sound more clear, less mumbling.

[@RobBCactive]

@@ter2710 If you take the International English course which includes phonetics and the variety of English vowels, the "strut" vowel is included in the unique vowels as is schwa. I'm from an area where different accents mix and my natural pronunciation shifts depending on company. One hard thing I found with Norwegian was hearing the difference between their vowels in speech as this information is superfluous for English comprehension.

[@scasey1960]

Watching this has convinced me that I don’t understand my own English pronunciation.

[@HPB1776]

Me neither. So interesting. Hi from Manchester 🤣

[@YodasPapa]

Thats not surprising. I remember trying to get my northern flatmates to realise they used a glottal stop instead of nothing in phrases like "I'm going t' shop". I had to actually walk them through the physical movements they were making before they understood and didn't think me crazy.

[@floepiejane]

Don't worry, this video is extremely generalized. Pronunciation is never that clean. But, you know, books need to be sold.

[@fivetimesyo]

Well I reckon there's only about three or so people in the world that understand English pronunciation.

[@QuarterMoonRachel]

Haha same. I said "London" to myself like 20 times trying to work out if I say each o differently. I think I do but who knows at this point

[@TheBreadCatt]

Great video as always! The merger of /ə/ and /ʌ/ in many English dialects is a pain-point for many English speakers trying to learn Danish. In Danish, /ə/ and /ʌ/ are not only contrasted, but minimal pairs come up all the time. Take "spise" /spiːsə/ (eat, infinitive) vs. "spiser" /spiːsʌ/ (eating, present) or "kage" /ˈkaːjə/ (cake) vs. "kager" /ˈkaːjʌ/ (cakes). Luckily (for learners) schwa-assimilation - which many modern Danish accents do in casual/rapid speech - makes the distinction phonetically depend on other factors instead, which learners usually have an easier time picking up on. "spise" for example is usually phonetically realised as [ˈsb̥iː(i)s] in casual/rapid speech vs. "spiser" [ˈsb̥iːsʌ].

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Great point. Thank you.

[@yedeque7858]

afaik they use /ɐ/ for /ər/ although it can be anything depending on the previous vowel

[@TheBreadCatt]

@@yedeque7858 So the danish /r/ in coda position is realized as a vowel (sometimes even analyzed as a semi-vowel in some contexts). Some workers phonemically describe it as /ɐ/ (which only occurs unstressed, and in coda positions), mainly to contrast with /ɔ/ (which do not have these restrictions). But, both phonemes in some environments are (in most standard dialects) realized in the same way: as [ʌ] or even more narrowly as [ɒ̽] when occurring monophthongally. Therefore in many contexts (including Danish pronunciation sources like ordnet.dk) both are transcribed as [ʌ] when occurring monophthongally, which I personally feel is also the most useful, since it communicates the back quality that it posses (at least in most dialects, including my own). While when serving as a semi-vowel off-glide it's transcribed as [ɐ̯ ]. And yes coda /r/ slash /ɐ/ does assimilate with some vowels, though only: |ɔːr| to [ɒ(ː)], |a(ː)r| to [ɑ(ː)] and |ər|, |rə|, |rər| to [ɐ̯]/[ʌ]. It does not assimilate into high or front vowels. Hence "ir", "er", "være" and "ord" are realized as [ˈiɐ̯], [ˈæɐ̯], [ˈvεːʌ] and [ˈoˀɐ̯].

[@musicamaxima]

Similar to German.

[@Monoaux]

Russian also contrast /ə/ and /ʌ/ where they represent the unstressed "o" and "a." However, in worlds with a bunch of Os and As those sounds tented to be "reinforced" or relaxed depending on their position in the word.

[@KasabianFan44]

The worst thing about phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries is that they try really hard to stay loyal to the phonetic distinctions of RP, but the symbols they use aren’t even accurate for modern RP. The sound usually represented by /ɔː/ is now pronounced more like [oː], while /ɒ/ ironically sounds closer to [ɔ]. Also, /uː/ is definitely [ʉː], /æ/ is more like [a], and /e/ is [ɛ] (Wikipedia actually acknowledges that last one in its pronunciation guides, so good on them). Even the whole business with /ʌ/ seems a bit fishy to me. I live in a largely RP-speaking area in the South East, and while I can hear the difference between it and the schwa, I’m fully convinced that it sounds nothing like [ʌ] and much more like [ɐ]. Unless my ears are completely deceiving me I guess…

[@piloto3189]

Your ears are not deceiving you my friend... the standard English IPA system is outdated and doesn't accurately reflect the way people speak nowadays. Based on my observations listening to different speakers, /ʌ/ can range from [ə] to [ɐ] to even [ä] depending on the accent. I think Americans tend to lean towards [ə]. Also, the standard /ʊ/ that we always see in words such as 'put' sounds much closer to [ɵ]. The /uː/ is actually a diphthong [ʉw] in modern Southern British English.

[@THall-vi8cp]

It's as if we're experiencing another vowel shift.

[@KasabianFan44]

@@THall-vi8cp Exactly. So dictionaries should update their IPA transcriptions to reflect those shifts.

[@sluggo206]

He ta;ks about obsolete RP IPA symbols in the video "Why these English IPA symbols are all wrong", in his interview with Simon Roper (it may be in part 1 on Simon's channel), and in his book "English After RP".

[@vladibarraza]

Interesting observations. I also hear [ɐ] instead of [ə], at the end of words, as in “whatever, never”, etc. I would say is more evident in Cockney than in modern RP. Also, I hadn't thought about the difference between [oː] and [ɔː], but I can clearly hear an [oː] in words like “all, raw” etc., when they are stressed.

[@serena-yu]

When I was in university, once a teacher asked me how to pronunce my name. I told her read the 'e' as ə. She seemed slightly surprised and said: oh -- it's a stressed schwa. I was keen to know more about that, but she was busy and didn't get any further in this topic. Now I got my explaination from you.

[@martinhartecfc]

As someone originally from Scotland, I can totally empathise with your confusion when you started uni. My dialect has no distinction between /u:/ and /ʊ/ (pronouncing both something like the Norwegian "u") and it used to confuse me no end when books (e.g. teaching German) would say that a given word was pronounced with "oo" as in "foot" and that another was pronounced similarly to the "oo" in "moon". But aren't they the same thing?! I only learned that they were different in RP and GA when I started teaching English. These days, I can hear the difference; but at first, I used to have to go in with a cheet sheet (for me!) when teaching this distinction in phonics clasees.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Great point. Can I ask you about the topic of this video? Resources on ScotE often use /ʌ/ for both STRUT and commA, e.g. above /ʌˈbʌv/. Do you feel they're the same phoneme?

[@andrewwweir]

Not Martin but an SSE speaker who loved the video. This has sent me down a rabbit hole of my own intuitions (which may or may not be typical for ScotE). CommA and STRUT are the same in quality, I think (both ʌ). Nevertheless I clearly distinguish between YOUng WilliAM, with the vowel in 'young' being ʌ -- but the two vowels in 'William' are nearly the same, ɪ. Similarly, although the strong form of 'but' is homophonous with 'butt' for me (with /ʌ/), the reduced form of 'but' is clearly distinct from 'butt' but nearly collapses with 'bit'. That is, where Americans are having problems with STRUT~/ə/, I think I have problems with KIT~/ə/ -- like NZE in the comments below, but (I think) with a vowel much closer to [ɪ] than [ə]. (So for example, I would never be tempted to transcribe 'undone' as /əndʌn/, but I would be tempted to transcribe the first two syllables of 'initial' as /ənɪʃ/ -- but I suspect that is a similar 'mistake' to 'undone' ("it's unstressed so it must be schwa"), and that RP speakers feel clearly that the first two vowels should both be /ɪ/?)

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

@@andrewwweir Thanks Andrew. KIT gets in on the act for Americans, too, and with hindsight I'd have mentioned that some of the unstressed schwas in the transcriptions I show are felt by many Americans to be KIT. (I've added a note to the description.) Just because RP has/had /ə/ in a bunch of words doesn't mean that other accents have one vowel (whether /ə/ or something else) in all of those words. John Wells in Accent of English: "In many places where RP has /ə/, it seems correct to regard Scottish English as having /ɪ/ or /ɪr/, e.g. pilot /ˈpaelɪt/, letter /ˈlɛtɪr/... many speakers make a consistent distinction between except and accept, etc., so that we must phonemicize these as /ɪk-, ʌk-/ respectively. In final position, an opener vowel is usual; this commA vowel may be analysed as /ʌ/, too (and this agrees with speakers' intuition)." I have the quote to hand because my next video (hopefully ready quite soon) is a quick world tour of ʌ/ə using John as guide. Spoiler alert for my next video: I think the great majority of English accents have no unstressable vowels, and RP's unstressable schwa is the marked case. So the key word in your comment is "nearly". My guess is that your commA vowelS are identifiable with STRUT or with KIT, both of which are stressable vowels. And maybe your happY vowel is identifiable with FACE?

[@andrewwweir]

@@DrGeoffLindsey yes I think that is right (if I understand you right) -- treating some RP /ə/ as KIT and some as STRUT; but commA is clearly /ʌ/ for me and the canonical 'reduced vowel' (in weak forms/function words etc.) is closer to KIT, i.e. "the strut" involves two clearly qualitatively distinct vowels for me (whereas it doesn't for my American wife -- we just tried some perceptual experiments over the dinner table), but "the kit" sends me into self-doubt. As does happY! I don't have clear intuitions about it, but I think it's distinct from the vowel of 'hate' for me -- but also from 'heat' and 'hit'. Probably closest to 'heat' for me.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

@@andrewwweir Some speakers find it easier than other to equate their strong and weak vowels. It's possible for speakers to have both weak /ə/ and weak /ɪ/, but in different words. I have /ə/ in Lennon and abbot, /ɪ/ in Lenin and rabbit; but many Americans have /ɪ/ in both Lennon and Lenin, and /ə/ in both abbot and rabbit. Ask your wife!

[@tarlespeech]

I LOVE this video and totally agree! UH is UH when it is stressed or unstressed. But people love phonetic transcriptions and leave me messages when they perceive that I am "wrong". Thanks for including me in the discussion. All the best and keep up the good work. Your videos are interesting.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you so much. And I hope you don't mind me captioning you for clarity.

[@tevaz5001]

You have no idea how much this video means to me. I wish we had had KZbin in 1970 when I started studying English in the university. I was born and brought up in the States, the family moved to Argentina when I was 11. I chose to study English but “British” [sic] phonetics was the rule. American English was shunned at the time. I had Argentine professors telling me that they would respect my native American (Midwestern) pronunciation but at the same time I always flunked Phonetics because of this mess with the schwa. I tried to explain to them what you are saying here but it was useless. Of course, I dropped out. (I led a happy life anyway but I’m wiping a tear. Thank you!)

[@nonWhites_have_to_go_back]

American language should be shunned, it isn't English. The English speak English. The name kinda gives it away.

[@daniellarkins3849]

​@@nonWhites_have_to_go_back Huh? Fyi, American English is much closer to traditional older British English. Do some research hun before passing off your ignorance.

[@voz805]

@Random Monacur She's just a typical Brit, believing they're the most polite, but are commonly snide to their American cousins. I wonder why. LOL

[@cyanhallows7809]

¿Entonces hablás español también? Que pensás sobre el acento argentino, creo que es interesante porque tiene muchas cosas únicas, especialmente el sonido de “sh” en lugar de “ll” (Aunque ya sé Uruguay tiene la misma pronunciación)

[@_JohnDoe]

@@daniellarkins3849, what they are saying is that the language used in England is English and that used in America is American. I do not see how that is much different from what you are saying.

[@kahnakuhl2009]

As a standard Australian speaker, I pronounce ʌ and ə differently - could be the RP influence, perhaps. ʌ is a shorter version of the 'ah' in father, while ə is an indistinct grunt that takes the place of all kinds of (yes, I confess) unstressed vowels. Loved the video!

[@contagiousintelligence5007]

My thoughts exactly. That’s how I learned English pronunciation

[@JSu-here]

Love this, I shall henceforth imagine Australians doing a lot of grunting in their conversations!

[@stevem4497]

I'm glad your comment was near the top. As another Australian speaker, I couldn't figure out the confusion. Those xrays in the video show it clearly: they're different. Schwa is the (almost) absence of a vowel sound, while others are when you can point to which vowel sound it is. I saw another comment saying London is two schwas but it's LUNdn to me. While on town names, I like how something as long as 'our' can just disappear. MELbn.

[@syl59281]

​​@@stevem4497​I'm also an Australian speaker and I totally agree. I don't really get the confusion 😅 LUNdn and MELbn are great examples! 😆

[@PeterOzanne]

Absolutely. I'm a fussy UK speaker, and they are clearly as you describe - hence each having a distinct symbol!

[@philwatson5132]

In my dialect, (Toronto, Canada), These two phonemes are quite distinct. For me, the pronunciation of ʌ falls midway between my pronunciations of ə and ɒ. I feel like I’m making lexical errors when I force myself to pronounce ʌ as if it were ə.

[@edward8597]

Also from Toronto and doubting myself (and my years of teaching ESL) right now. I find "undone" illustrative. I'm *quite* sure I pronounce the first syllable in "undone" and the second syllable in "prison" differently... unless we're saying that the latter is a syllabic n.

[@nervetonic1]

@@edward8597 -- I noticed just now that you reference "undone" (succinctly) the same way I did (at embarrassing length). To make matters worse, I dragged the Guess Who into it. My apologies to Canada if thus I contribute to unrest.

[@edward8597]

@@nervetonic1 Ha! So did I in fact! And I was thinking "Look! Look! Phonetic spelling proves it!" before I remembered it was the first syllable we were talking about, not the second. (Actually, I'd say Burton stresses both halves of that word equally, so it wasn't that useful.)

[@PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim]

ah, our special Canadian friends ❤

[@hugobourgon198]

Even when the guy in the video says there's no difference between the two vocals of the word "double" except stress, he says "daw-bol" (one closer to "a" the other closer to "o"). This isn't just stress, stress doesn't change the sound, it only changes the intonation.

[@thekenneth3486]

I love your matter-of-fact objective approach to analyzing phonetics and phonemics. Sometimes I want to jump up and say, "Yay, I've been thinking that all along. Other times, I'm given something to ponder over at length. But I quickly learned never to dismiss what you say out of hand; turns out I usually end up agreeing with you after all. I'm American, so now I'm left to puzzle out whether I do or don't have different "uh" sounds. It's harder tha one would think!

[@joonasvakkilainen2457]

When I first learned about this, I was really puzzled, because having learned English as a native Finnish-speaker, we were told that ə is like Finnish ö, whereas ʌ is like Finnish (which of course isn't true), and this is how Finns spell them if they write English in a Finnish accent. Therefore, becomes , whereas becomes . I guess this is because we have RP-based English instruction, but it also affects how we perceive the American vowels, which we also hear more often than the RP ones.

[@PaulVinonaama]

I guess you meant: ʌ is like Finnish a.

[@cejannuzi]

In both the US and UK, there is a lot of accent variation, esp. with vowels. So it's really hard to generalize. But in ELT they generalize and simplify to give students models to latch onto.

[@joonasvakkilainen2457]

@@cejannuzi Yes of course. I was just curious about the perception differences speakers of different languages regarding the STRUT vowel and schwa, but that is of course natural as everybody filters sounds through their own phonologies.

[@koszeggy]

Hungarian here, and I do the same. 😂 For example, London is [landön] for me (sort of), whereas both [landan] and [löndön] sound clearly off.

[@TerezatheTeacher]

I almost never laugh at comedy videos, I just find them funny without actually laughing. Your video made me laugh out loud. Thank you. It was the Nineteen Eighty-Four reference that got me, though the hallelujah and the desert of no reasons were hilarious as well. (EDIT: OK, the ending is the best part.) I had no idea Americans (and speakers of some other dialects) didn't have the ʌ sound. Fascinating! Thank you for being awesome and informing us about cool stuff that everybody ignores or denies. You are an inspiration. And I don't want to be a schwa anymore.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks!

[@disappointedenglishman98]

Some of them have the ʌ sound and use it where the schwa should be. I think the distinction just isn't there in the US and various people pronounce both ʌ or pronounce both schwa. As I stated in another comment, some Americans appear to say Russia as rʌʃʌ, with their mouth open gormlessly at the end of the word.

[@xXJ4FARGAMERXx]

To me, I clearly hear a different sound when saying /ə/ and /ʌ/. And saying "fungus" like /fʌŋgʌs/ just sounds wrong (and no it's not stress because I can say FUNG-gus). fuhnguhs like /fəŋgəs/ also sounds wrong, it's like fingers but the s is /s/ and the er is /ə/. So saying they're the same sound but stressed and destressed is like saying that 'I' /aj/ and ih /ɪ/ are the same sound but stressed and destressed.

[@IrvingIV]

@@disappointedenglishman98 Well, as the ^ (or ə) at the end there is voiced; not leaving the mouth open at the end of the word prevents us from saying Rəshəm/R^sh^m, which would sound like "Rush 'em" ("rush/hurry towards them," or "rush at them") or in other words, "Attack!"

[@IrvingIV]

@@disappointedenglishman98 "Gormlessly;" how rude.

[@shervinmarsh2456]

Thank you so much. You make so much more sense than anyone else I’ve talked to. In 1997, I was trying to teach a class of children in Taiwan. Here they use KK (Kastner Knott) which is very similar to the IPA. I grew up with Webster’s and learned about schwa in third grade. No one had talked to me about KK, and the special symbols, and I didn’t really know anything. My boss of the cram school was angry that I wrote the pronunciation guide wrongly. I was supposed to have looked up the correct pronunciation of my mother tongue before I taught the kids. I’ve learned since, but I’ll never forget how me transcribing my mother tongue was incorrect. Love your videos.

[@adoberoots]

Dr. Lindsey, this is very interesting! I am American, and notice a clear difference in how I say /ʌ/ as in "strut" and /ə/ as in comma. I repeated several of the words you gave with those sounds and each was distinct every time. I would think my accent is General American but this is making me think that it might not truly be the case... I grew up in several different cities (Denver, Albuquerque, and NYC) so there are perhaps accent influences from those places that have led to this, but I'm not sure which ones are to blame!

[@ApolloStarfall]

Exactly the same here. Grew up all over the country.

[@adoberoots]

@@ApolloStarfall I’m relieved to hear that I’m not alone! I even recorded myself saying both words and listened to it a few times to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. Still a mystery to me where I picked up that distinction though - it seems like most of the dialects I grew up around don’t make it.

[@ApolloStarfall]

I suspect it comes from the fact that when you grow up hearing all sorts of accents regularly, you're just more attuned to that sort of thing. I can also easily emulate other accents, and despite never having been to the UK, I can generally tell where a Brit is from within about a 50 mile radius

[@Zenaltra]

Same here, these are very different sounds for me in all provided examples. I’ve only lived in the Northeast; NJ till my mid-20s

[@ApolloStarfall]

@adoberoots the previous comment sent me a notification, and I'm glad it did, because earlier today, at work in Central Ohio, a customer had an accent, and I couldn't help myself..I said "west yorkshire? Outside of Leeds?" He was very confused at I how I got it so close, but also grateful that an American could hear the difference for once.

[@rzrbli]

As a non-native English speaker who has learned to pronounce most words in the British way, I find it strange that these two sounds can be confused! I always thought they are totally distinct vowel sounds.

[@castelodeossos3947]

Agree. I am a native speaker of English and former teacher of English as a foreign language. I fail entirely to see that 'under' does not have two totally distinct vowel sounds (in writing, of course, they are 'totally distinct vowels'). And in high-speed speech, of course, both will be pronounced as a schwa, which is a common occurrence.

[@Dagfari]

I'm Canadian and I hear the difference clearly between the two, but then again I'm a language teacher...

[@rogerwilco2]

Yes. I agree as well. In general I perceive a strong tendency in many dialects of English to converge on a language with as few sounds as possible.

[@gcewing]

Completely different in New Zealand English too. Our schwas are more like "i" in "kit", "in", etc. (Although I'm told our "i" is a bit warped compared to most other accents.)

[@Serenity_yt]

Also non native here. I've never learned it explicitly but just now trying it out I do hear a difference in my own speech. I couldnt tell you why I do that though. Maybe because I tend to stick closer my native German rules for how letters sound and if you say strut and comma similar to how you'd do it in German you have a very obvious difference between the 2. I cant really even say them the same way if I wanted to.

[@jennifer2675]

I subscribed immediately! I had initially ignored any contradictions I’d learned concerning these two symbols… until I started learning Korean and I found myself hyperfixated the pronunciation of the [ʌ]. Like many, I’d been taught that, for transcriptions, [ʌ] was stressed and [ə] was unstressed even though I never heard a difference in my pronunciation of these vowels. Additionally, when I’d pronounce them as transcribed, they would sound unnatural to me. But I excused this by simply coming to the conclusion that my professors must know something I don’t 😅 So then it took me by surprise when I would look up Korean IPA transcriptions and [ʌ] kept turning up everywhere, I kept thinking "this can’t be right" because my concept of what [ʌ] sounded like didn’t fit with how I knew the Korean word was actually pronounced It was this whole “thing" that really bothered me for a long time so thank you for this video 🙏🏼

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you!

[@cmyk8964]

English uses the symbol “ʌ” differently than intended. The Korean 어 is actually [ʌ] (unrounded [ɔ]), as opposed to English /ʌ/, which can be realized in a lot of different ways but not actually [ʌ]: e.g. [ə] (as OP describes for the most of the video), [ɐ] (in some AmE dialects), [ä] (Aus.), or even merged with /ʊ/ (as OP mentions that some BrE dialects do).

[@abnab4134]

Omg that's it! I've also been bothered by this, but knowing the phoneme equivocation is from British English answers the question! I've thought that for American learners, 어 should be described as /aw/ rather than /uh/. Similarly I've had a similar problem from Korean to English. One of my students is an older gentleman from Gyeongnam and pronounces 어 closer to /uh. For example, 없어 becomes /읎으/. I realized then that I need to be cognizant of my students' local accent before using any transcription.

[@alistaircaradec2180]

I'm a native speaker of French, and this reminds me of the difficulties Parisians encounter with the distinction between the nasal vowels [ɛ̃] and [œ̃]. The distinction is much clearer in Quebec French, and even just in the southern regions of France.

[@gengchun959]

As a person who start to learn french, it very difficult for me to tell the difference between [ɛ̃] and [œ̃].They really sound the same but ə/ʌ is not the same.I'm native speaker of chinese. I find one -third french words are very similar to english words ,i mean the spellings. how funny！

[@EebstertheGreat]

@@gengchun959 Yeah, learning a smattering of French can allow English readers to get the gist of most technical French documents and some other stuff, but usually it doesn't help understand speech or more general or casual writing. It's easy to see that « géographie » means "geography," but hard to see that "bonjour" means "good day" or "hello."

[@younesjonas2040]

who cares 😂 France is a failed States

[@gc2009able]

"No transcription without representation".... utterly hilarious! Watching an interesting video in its own right and then getting the bonus reward of that gem and a few others at the end made my day. I laughed aloud!

[@goeledeckers]

I’m from Belgium and I teach (British) English in Spain. The university entrance exams for English have one part all about pronunciation, and distinguishing between the two symbols/sounds presented in this video is actually a very common question. 😅

[@randomdude4669]

I honestly didn't think anyone still learned british English anymore, literaly every European i hear uses the american style english

[@skybananaqueen4051]

@@randomdude4669 Euros often learn British English in school, I’d say in a very very big majority of the cases. However, like me and many others who essentially relearned English from the internet, they sorta revert to American English after school. Most euros I know have strong native accent but uses American memes, jokes, expressions and references perfectly. I’ve never seen anyone that talks like a Brit with full on British expressions, it’s something quite hard to do without the input and environment that the internet is able to provide for American English

[@ter2710]

Europeans just use their native /a/ for the wedge sound. That is Europeans say 'luck, duck, cup...' as /lak, dak, kap.../. At some point, when they try to use the 'American pronunciation', they just use their native /a/ for ”lock, dock, cop, soccer, got, bot,...” . Soon enough they notice that they lack a vowel for ”luck, duck, cup, sucker, gut...” so they revert to the previous pronuncian.

[@ArkhBaegor]

@@ter2710 "Europeans" is way too unspecific for what you're saying. For instance in France it would be /œ/ for "luck, duck and cup", which is not the native /a/ sound

[@pedrosmotaj1897]

Impeccable as always. I'd love to see a video about the infamous IPA vowels /ɑ, ɒ, ɔ/ and the cot- caught merger particularly in NAmE. As a non native speaker of English I perceive that the /ɒ/ sound is more common in NAmEng than in SSBE, despite what dictionaries say.

[@alicia1463]

I second the idea of a cot-caught merger video. I'm from a region of the US (Pittsburgh) where the merger is extremely common, so I never knew that "cot" and "caught" could be pronounced differently until I heard that some people merge the sounds.

[@jennypai3763]

I'm so glad I'm not crazy. When I was doing transcriptions for class, I had the hardest time with these two "uh" sounds. Because of the "schwa is not stressed" rule, I would listen and think the answer is this one, but it ends being the other when I get my assignments graded.

[@anitapeludat256]

And I love your sense of humor about all of this. I grew up in the 60's. Schwa was never mentioned grades K through 12. College level English and linguistic courses were the only way to further expand all the rules. However, I'm not clear why some folks from Britain seem irritated that we don't speak British English. We are vastly different countries. And we are much too young as a country. We have loads of growing pains. Besides, we are basically 50 different countries in a complicated marriage. However, I do enjoy your lessons. I'm always eager to learn and appreciate the 'why' of things.

[@zagle1772]

i've heard it said that the only real difference between schwa and strut is that strut is written with a and schwa is written with an or and

[@mjudec]

Vowel sounds are fascinating. As a native Glaswegian, I definitely notice the difference between these two. But I'm also often amused by other words where they seem to be pronounced the same in England but notably different in Scotland (the stand out I think of is high, height... Where we pronounce height almost like a scouser would pronounce hate... And of course we pronounce hate differently again). It's lovely to watch a video of someone talking about vowel sounds and the functional mri of larynx was great too. Consider yourself liked and subscribed. I could listen to this type of content all day.

[@Jerdifier]

I’m a Canadian, and I think I might understand what’s going on here. I suspect that your accent has some degree of Canadian raising. We also distinguish between the vowels in high (same as rider, pie, and bisexual) and height (same as writer, hike, and bicycle). We also distinguish between the vowels in bout (same as mouth, house, and trout) and bowed (same as cow, housing, and flower), and I wonder if you also differentiate them?

[@mjudec]

@@Jerdifier Bowed and bout same vowel sound but different length. Rider for us is in the height category not the high one.

[@bennaustin6632]

Wow. As an Australian I cannot imagine pronouncing circumference or Columbus with the same vowel all the way through. To me, the 2nd syllable has a different vowel. I tried pronouncing these words with only schwa and It sounded bizarre. I don’t use schwa in strut at all. I have the same vowel in both syllables of above, but it is not schwa, but ^.

[@coryman125]

I'm Canadian- for the most part my accent is the same as the general American, but I definitely feel like I pronounce them differently too. At least, I can feel my tongue move, and the sound is noticeably different, more than I would expect from just being stressed? Maybe this is just another difference I'd never noticed before

[@silver6380]

Even in North America, "Columbus" doesn't have three of the same sound. It has three of the same *phoneme*, but the second vowel is still different (because it's stressed). "strut variant" = stressed, unstressed at the end of a word (usually), unstressed at the beginning of a word (sometimes) "schwa variant" = unstressed within a word

[@darndoor3065]

We don't pronounce all the vowels the same. The third syllable is higher than a schwa, more like the BIT vowel.

[@adamstag9775]

@@coryman125 I'm Canadian and they seem quite distinct to me as well. It is much more difficult to distinguish between my "foot" vowel and schwa.

[@TheRenegade...]

I pronounce my schwas with the strut vowel (instead of the reverse for some reason), and I definitely don't use the same vowel all the through circumference. ser-cum-frints

[@vincenzocnt]

My native languages are Italian and Neapolitan and I clearly perceive the distinction between the two phonemes, even when you pronounce them.

[@Cipricus]

Me too, I'm Romanian, and languages like Romanian and Italian give (possibly misleading sometimes) a clear model for the difference: a native of these languages will hear the English sound in "mum" or even "mother" closer to the "a" sound in "mamma mia"!

[@vincenzocnt]

@@Cipricus hm, no, I perceive the difference those two phones in Romanian and Italian

[@morgantempleton2085]

@@Cipricus It depends on your accent. I'm Australian and have been watching a bit of opera lately. The Italian "a" sounds almost exactly the same as the Australian vowel in "mum". Madama Butterfly is an opera in Italian with an American main character, and "butterfly" in Italian is pronounced as though it were spelled "batterflai" and that sounded fine to me. Although judging by this video, Americans might find it weird.

[@Cipricus]

@@morgantempleton2085 My natural impression is the same. What intrigues me is that the French, who can easily pronounce "mum" as Italian "mam", or "cup" as "cap", like you say, do not, but try to be "correct" about it and say "mom" and "cop", thus doing what to an English speaker amounts to the "French accent": but which comes not from a natural (French-like) pronunciation but an effort to sound English. I guess the French cannot forget the way it's written, and resist temptation of pronouncing "u" like the "a" (in "avoir") and also they try to imitate instead of the easy u=a, the deeper "a" (as presented here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6iZonyor5t_rbM).

[@PC_Simo]

Same here; and my native language is Finnish, the standard form (that no-one speaks) of which, doesn’t have either ʌ or ə; although, in vernacular, many people (at least, here, in the Tampere region) pronounce ə, in words, like: ”Äsken” (= ”Recently”/”Just A Moment Ago”): ”Äsk/ə/n”.

[@TheEnglishExperience]

Finally, someone talks about this in a clear concise way! It's been driving me crazy for a while.

[@mr.surlaw4239]

I'm a native English speaker in Malaysia. I've never heard of ʌ-less English before. I've tried speaking out loud replacing the ʌ with a schwa and would like to testify that I did not sound like myself. "I had a tonne of buns" sounded like I was trying to say "I had a turn of burns". I don't think this disproves its insignificance in British or American English, but it's certainly not useless to distinguish it from schwas in English in some dialects.

[@simlee6177]

>> "I had a tonne of buns" sounded like I was trying to say "I had a turn of burns" Or perhaps "I had a tin of bins" in a Kiwi accent? ;-)

[@Ilovenature12.3]

Thank you

[@binglebongle8601]

It wasn't until 9:45 that I realized you weren't talking about beer at the beginning of the video

[@franticranter]

I think part of the confusion is that even in those accents (like my South Eastern English accent) that does have a strut schwa distinction they still sound similar. This is compounded by how for those with such a distinction, because that schwa sound is often on the unstressed syllables, it's often harder to listen out to that sound to see if it is different from any other given sound. I think this also raises some of the difficulties with how we teach the IPA. Often one of the easiest ways to learn a sound is to tie it back to a sound in a word that we use everyday. I instinctively know how to pronounce strut, so when learning ʌ I can tie it back to that sound. But of course vowel sounds can vary a lot from accent to accent, so whilst saying that ʌ is the vowel sound in strut is useful for me with my South Eastern English accent, it would not be useful for most Americans. This therefore creates difficulties in creating a universal key for such sounds. A solution would be to just make sure that people know what each sound is by the sound, and not by referring to a word which (for some) has that sound in it. But it can often be difficult to just learn sounds like that.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Strictly, the key words are labels for sets of words that share a vowel, not for the vowels themselves. This is useful in describing different accents and how they change over time. So 'STRUT' strictly means not ʌ but rather a set of words that are pronounced with the same vowel (whatever that might be) in various accents; the STRUT set contains strut, love, touch, flood etc. We can say that in broad N. England, STRUT = FOOT. This doesn't mean that ʌ = ʊ (which is nonsensical), but that the words in the STRUT set and the FOOT set have the same vowel (which happens to be ʊ). BATH words (bath, ask, answer, laugh, chance etc. etc.) have the same vowel as PALM words in the south of England, but the same vowel as TRAP words in the north and in N. America.

[@_resh2265]

In French schools, we are told that the vowel in 'strut', or 'uh', or any of these RP /ʌ/ when they come from a 'u' letter is pronounced as the french /ə/ (without even talking of phonetic or phonemes, it's just how the teachers say it, especially with younger children, to avoid complicating things too much). When later on I discovered that /ʌ/ existed I was mindblown because I had always thought (as i had been taught) that love was pronouced /lɔv/ (that's how you would read it with French pronounciation rules), and that in the word 'butter', it was twice the swcha sound... It turned out that according to RP, which is the accent that is mostly taught at high school, the same /ʌ/ is used for 'love' and for the first syllable of 'butter', but that the last syllable of 'butter' was something else. It made it quite hard for me to figure out how to pronounce /ʌ/, because i wanted to get something clearly distinct from /ɔ/ and /ə/, but trying to make it too different to a schwa sounded a bit off. Of course hearing multiple native speakers with various accents didn't help much because they can have different realisations of what would be /ʌ/ in RP, and because many would pronounce it /ə/ which I was conviced was wrong. It is mostly through listening to native speakers of England that I have managed to figure out how to distinguish /ə/ and /ʌ/ (both in listening and talking, but it was still quite an effort to pronounce). And this video just made me realise why it was such a struggle to find out what the English /ʌ/ really is, thanks.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you! Perhaps I'm telling you what you know already, but these are most of the most common STRUT words written with 'o': above, accompany, accomplish, among, become, borough, brother, colour, come, comfort, company, compass, cover, discover, done, dove, dozen, front, glove, govern, honey, London, love, lovely, Monday, money, monk, monkey, month, mother, none, nothing, onion, other, oven, recover, shove, shovel, slovenly, some, Somerset, son, sponge, stomach, thorough, ton, tongue, won, wonder, worry

[@sharonminsuk]

@@DrGeoffLindsey May I take issue with "accomplish"? The o in that word is not (at least in my own dialect, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody else do that either) pronounced the same as all the others! To me, accomplish uses the o of "complement" or "hot". (Also, if YT happens to draw your attention to this reply, please also see my own main comment post that I just added, describing my confusion on some other aspects of this video.)

[@sharonminsuk]

Although, wow, this time it did not! I wonder if the rules have changed...

[@J75Pootle]

@@DrGeoffLindsey this is really interesting, I would say I have a native accent very similar to RP, but my mum grew up in the north and while her accent has become southern over time some of her phonemes have remained as they would be in her original accent - this must have been passed on to me in some way, because some of the words you listed (namely accomplish, among, slovenly, tongue, won, wonder) I pronounce with an entirely different vowel than the others (I don't know the IPA so I can't accurately transcribe how I pronounce it, sorry)

[@user-ed7et3pb4o]

@@sharonminsuk As a native RP speaker, I pronounce it like that (the same as in ‘company’)

[@rayelle6579]

Ok two things. Born and raised in the states and I am just discovering this channel today and enjoying it. I must say I would definitely pronounce both vowel sounds in “double” quite differently. The first is a clear “uh” and the second is like to the u in “bull”. If I were a child I may spell it like “duhbull”. Also , before today, I would have said that the schwa sound in “strut” and “comma” were identical for me. And that’s the point you’re making which I’m sure for many people is likely true. And I COMPLETELY agree that how much you stress a sound should not be the determining factor in how you’d choose to spell it phonetically. Anyway, I noticed something when I quickly pronounced “Russia”. When I slowly enunciate each syllable individually, I say watch vowel exactly the same way- “RUH•SHUH”. But then when I said it quickly I realized the second vowel sound was more of a combination between the vowel in “buck” and “book”. In fact, when I think about it, I believe the sound is created by my entire mouth at its natural resting (but open) position. “Buck” requires me to lower my bottom jaw a bit. “Book” requires me to pucker my lips just a bit. But I notice when I say “Russia” after making the “sh” sound, I lower my tongue and my mouth is still as my throat moves to create that last sound. Wish I could comment with an audio recording. Hope this makes sense!

[@seekingbasic1994]

So thankful for your work. It's save me from a hundred hours to find the different between them two, when all I need is the fluency. The more I try to find the difference the more iI confuse. And you make me smile so many time by your humorous. Such a comedy artist in your soul. Warm greeting from Vietnam.

[@macblastoff7700]

Dr. Lindsey. I'm overjoyed to have found your channel. Thank you for allowing that there are differences not only in pronunciation of dialects, but also academic-based biases and pre-conceived notions on what is considered "proper". On a constructive note, I find it immensely more helpful if you follow the same pattern each time of explaining what one will be hearing, and then playing the clip. Playing the clip and then explaining it without followup/repeat after the fact dulls the lesson and makes it difficult to take away the full impact of the example. Once again, many thanks for letting differences be okay.

[@batchampa]

In my Australian English there's an obvious difference between ə and ʌ. "Done" and "the" have different vowel sounds, regardless of whether I stress the words or not.

[@leafbelly]

This video is about Americans having no distinction, not Aussies.

[@matthewparker9276]

This discussion always confuses me because "comma" and "strut" have the same vowel in my accent, but "the" and many other words often transcribed with a schwa have a different vowel.

[@Paul_Halicki]

@@leafbelly Right, but having the Aussie perspective helps me understand.

[@peterbengtson7406]

Absolutely love those Handel sarcasms! So incredibly full of meaning. :D Brilliant video, as always.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Many thanks!

[@dappercuttlefish9557]

This is fascinating! I'm Canadian, with an accent that's adjacent to but not quite General American, and I... kinda distinguish between /ʌ/ and /ə/? I only really figured out that I had two different sounds there when pronouncing words that had both, and I think I'm pushing /ə/ slightly higher than normal when I do. It's also not always in the same places that RP uses them. But I would definitely say "bubblegum" has two stressed syllables with two different vowels!

[@Hylebos75]

That's funny, because for me the Bu- and the gu- are the exact same pronunciation, just starting with a different letter. I dont even know HOW they could possibly be two different vowels? what vowels??

[@roadrunnercrazy]

I agree. I'm from Western Canada. Bubblegum has two different sounds. The second one is in my throat while the first is in my mid mouth. I think people are relying on their ears to completely distinguish their vowels which is a problem due to both actual hearing problems and learned recognition limitations. We need to also consult how the sound 'feels' when we make it, in order to be accurate.

[@melanezoe]

Not only informative and entertaining, but highly witty.

[@MrFgibbons]

Omg! So much going on here, I love it (lʌv it, actually, in my accent😂). Might have to get “No transcription without representation” put on a T-shirt! But seriously I’ve watched several of these and it’s my new favorite channel, because you’re showing us so much that’s right under our noses, if we only listened (tortured metaphor, sorry). But it’s all in plain sight (another one! interesting how our turns of phrase seem to privilege serves other than hearing…)

[@jikiajikia]

Another great video, keep up the good work! Dr Lindsey. Not gonna lie, the intro to the video reminded me of myself scratching my head on the phonetic realization of the alleged "syllabic" consonants in Georgian and specifically in my idiolect, which turned out be a sequence of a short epethentic schwa and a succeeding sonorant and so a word like /vpʰɾtskʰvni/ would actually be pronounced as [fpʰə̆(ɾ)t͡skʰʊ̊ˈni] in my idiolect. by the way, in spoken Georgian, including my idiolect, the sonorants /ɾ m n l/ are often dropped when they occur in intercontinental positions, hence the brackets around the /ɾ/.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you! If only I had time to study Georgian.

[@jikiajikia]

@@DrGeoffLindsey would've been cool if you had time to study Georgian Geoff, you are one of my favourite linguistic KZbinr along with Simon roper

[@omp199]

@@jikiajikia Do you know of any channels here on KZbin that are helpful for learning basic Georgian?

[@jikiajikia]

@@omp199 Yes there are, Ryan Nakao and Ho-da.

[@omp199]

@@jikiajikia Thank you!

[@driksarkar6675]

I'm an American, but I think I pronounce the two vowel sounds in "above" slightly differently, with the first one being somewhat higher (maybe [ɨ]?) That said, this isn't completely consistent, and I might sometimes pronounce them with the same vowel; I think they're definitely phonemically the same. Also note that this [ɨ] is mostly just word-initial. I think I somewhat disagree with the transcriptions from 6:11 to 6:50 on which words have schwa and which have KIT; I think I actually say "fung/ɪ/s", "undercurr/ɪ/nt", "Colomb/ɪ/s", "surrog/ɪ/te", "circumfer/ɪ/nce", "comeupp/ɪ/nce", "stom/ɪ/ch", "supplem/ɪ/nt", "Sulliv/ɪ/n", "buff/ɪ/tt", "Lond/ɪ/n", "rump/ɪ/s", and "governm/ɪ/nt."

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks, great point about KIT. I should have at least mentioned this, but I didn't have time to go into it in detail. AmE KIT, schwa, barred i and Weak Vowel Merger absolutely need a video.

[@trinity_null]

@@DrGeoffLindsey Id love to see it!

[@alexxxO_O]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I would love to see that.

[@driksarkar6675]

@@johnrice3785 Yeah, that was a mistake on my part. Thanks for pointing it out!

[@_volder]

Your dialect certainly appears to lean more upward and leftward in the vowel grid than mine. I can't think of anywhere that I'd ever use "ɨ" (you put it where I'd put "ə"), and I get "ɛ" in some of those example words (before N except in London or Sullivan) and a real "ə" in others (before S or T and in London/Sullivan, although in the latter I could also have it drift toward "æ" or "ɛ"). When I see the plural suffix written as "əz" in words like "judges" instead of "ɛz" or "ɪz", I think "That's not really a schwa; that's a schwi." In other words, I see English as having two different sounds with the role which schwa often has, being the lazy neutral-feeling (and thus hard to pinpoint) sounds that unstressed syllables tend to fall into, depending on what consonants are adjacent or what the vowel would have originally been without conversion to schwa/schwi.

[@joshuahillerup4290]

I'm in Ontario, Canada, and these sound district to me, at least when I try saying the words that have them different. Which is confusing me, because I didn't realize that I had this vowel distinction as different from standard American

[@larrysulky7614]

You don't. I'm American and lived in Ontario for over twenty years. The sounds are distinct in my GenAm dialect and in your Ontario dialect.

[@andrewmcintosh2703]

I'm from Ontario, and I totally can't hear a distinction. Are you sure your hearing one?

[@joshuahillerup4290]

@@andrewmcintosh2703 yup. There's a lot more variation in people in the same area than it seems. For instance my mom doesn't have the caught/cot merger, but I do

[@kkupsky6321]

I think it’s sweet you’re getting to this important topic and using New Jersey as your starting point.

[@mattdunne1754]

Thank you Doctor, for bringing m to a better understanding to how we all speak. Having a Queens/LongIslandish accent and living on the west coast of the US I have had the fascination and opportunity to hear how English is pronounced in so many different ways. Beyond that I just like learning, thank you, and thank you for bringing me context.

[@WylliamJudd]

I have what I would consider a very standard American Accent (Northern California) and I pronounce the two vowels in each of these words differently from each other: consult stomach (stuh-mic) dumpster tulsa (tul sah) buzzard adult Also I pronounce the last schwa in circumference and comeuppance like a short i like in "pinch". I also noticed that I feel like any schwa sound preceding an "r" sounds like a totally different vowel sound to me. Hard for me to describe the difference between the vowels in consult and adult...maybe it's just the stress that's confusing me.

[@ryalloric1088]

YES! My exact experience! (Manitoba Canada). I would also add the vowel in "hull" pull" etc to the one before "r"s. So I would pronounce "circumference" with 3 different vowels.

[@bhaycoblentz6337]

I think southerners pronounce them differently.

[@cunjoz]

fucking thank you. even as a non-native speaker (but i'd say on a native level) those two sounds are very clearly distinct to me.

[@gwbushsucksballs]

In a lot of those the second vowel is actually a syllabic consonant, which is probably why it sounds different. I speak a pretty standard west coast accent too and we say like [kənsl̩t], [dəmpstɹ̩] [bəzɹ̩d]. It's weird to think of but americans syllabize sonorants quite a bit especially in fast speech

[@WylliamJudd]

@@gwbushsucksballs interesting! Now I want to know what a sonorant sounds like backwards!

[@magdalenasieluzycka8873]

Brilliant! I've already shared that with my students! Thank you very much for creating such a valuable, critical and fun video! You even captured a part from "Hamilton". You're my pronunciation guru :) I'm waiting for more videos like that, best wishes. magda xxx

[@bendonaldson9026]

Hello Magdalena

[@jaspermay5813]

@@bendonaldson9026 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@kolober2045]

This drove me crazy when I studied linguistics. I eventually went with it because that's what professors wanted.

[@xebio6]

I need a little more persuading, but this is top shelf content and presentation. Congrats Mr. Lindsey

[@theoriginaledi]

Love the last minute and a half. It gave me a great chuckle :D PS I'm a native American speaker who is moderately obsessive about cultivating accurate yet natural-sounding pronunciation. For me, I find that it depends on the surrounding sounds. Some of my /ʌ/s certainly do come out as /ə/s, but I can come up with a good number of situations where they're clear /ʌ/s, too. Interesting stuff!

[@polenfrej4364]

Wow! That ending! All of this channel’s endings! Your videos, Dr Lindsey, always feel like an abstract and introspective sequence of a Gainax footage, like those last two episodes of _N. G. Evangelion_ or quite a few moments in _His and Her Circumstances._ Yeah, I’m talking of *ánimej* to an old-timer (in the American sense, what a word lol). As a(n) SSB English learner, I would like modernized IPA symbols for General American, as well. My brother, a GA learner, struggles a lot with the archaic symbols in his Anki deck. Something like *ɛ* instead of /e/ for DRESS, *i(j)* instead of /iː/ for FLEECE, *ej* instead of /eɪ/ for FACE, *ɐj* or *ʌj* i. o. /aɪ/ for PRICE, *oj* i. o. /ɔɪ/ for CHOICE, *ow* i. o. /oʊ/ for GOAT, *ə́r* i. o. /ɜːr/ or /ɝ/ for NURSE, *ɑ~ɒ* i. o. /ɔː/ for THOUGHT, *or* i. o. /ɔːr/ for NORTH; and above all, *ʉw* i. o. /uː/ for GOOSE. And all the _r-liaison vowels_ the same but without the schwas, no length mark, and obviously, with its rhotic *r.* I’m just a linguistics enthusiast and my mother tongue is not the English one, so what I say is potentially not one hundred percent accurate. Cheers!

[@polenfrej4364]

@John Rice My native language is Spanish. I thought of *ɐj* as an option because I was biased for the SSB TRAP vowel being completely front, but… yeah, *phonemic.* In Spanish we also use ⟨a⟩ to represent a (somewhat back) central vowel, so it's okay the *aj* transcription. The remnant of conservative RP and Mid-Atlantic accent, /aɪ/, was born from the [äɪ] pronunciation of this diphthong in those dialects anyway.

[@polenfrej4364]

Oh no, he’s gone….

[@alexxxO_O]

Those transcriptions are incredibly similar to what I use for GA! Right on, IMO. The only thing I'd say is that THOUGHT can absolutely tend further forward, all the way towards [ä] in General American. So I write [ä~ɑ~ɒ]. Also, PRICE has a phonemic split before voiced/voiceless consonants for many GA speakers, like "writer" [ɐj~ʌj] vs "rider" [aj].

[@alexxxO_O]

Oh, there's also more to be said with how to transcribe all the various remaining vowels that are prevocalic to /r/. marry-merry-Mary is usually all /ɛɚ/.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Praise indeed! I seriously have to catch up on my viewing. Not sure what's on Netflix here. Fun that you're learning different accents. I teach a married couple doing the same. I hope it won't be tooo long before we can release our AmE version of CUBE.

[@miewwcubing2570]

dutch has the same problem with ʏ and ə you also see that many dutch children write ( when pronouced /ə/ ) as ( when pronounced )

[@DualKeys]

As an American, I'd never heard the idea that ə is never stressed. In my normal speech, that's the only sound I use, and I tend to use the Merriam-Webster dictionary, so I don't tend to see ʌ in pronunciation guides. After watching this video, I realized that I do sometimes use the ʌ sound when I sing. This is because my vocal coach was of the opinion that ə is not a very melodious sound. So I tend to replace ə with ʌ.

[@timseguine2]

The pronunciation people use when they sing is very often different than what they use when speaking.

[@YodasPapa]

@@timseguine2 Yeah uk people often sound more american when singing. Some audiences find this affected, but I think it's equally as much to do with pure aesthetics. The lengthening of certain vowel sounds can sound like a southern american accent; the avoidance of the tinny [t] in favour of the more american "d"-like "t"; and the introduction of the "r" sound at the end of "-er" words to avoid the schwa mimics the american accent.

[@jerstumc5033]

ə is the unstressed version of ʌ, because american english doesn't stress "ʌ" like in but, butter, etc... It depends on the accent, there words that have different pronuciation, but you listen to english a lot, you'll pick it up naturally and be to use it. Something that's also different in american english is this word "Catch" now i realize that the "a" in catch sounds like an "E" in Let and it can also be pronounced as in the word Cat. Just pronounce whatever you like, if you're a learner of english, a native won't care since there are many people who learn english

[@YodasPapa]

@@jerstumc5033 ə is not the unstressed version of ʌ, I promise you. I'm a native anglophone and I hear the difference clearly. The latter vowel sound is more towards an [a] while the schwa is completely neutral. Also, all americans stress the first syllable on butter. If they stressed the second they'd sound vaguely french.

[@thesquishedelf1301]

@@YodasPapa”bit-tare” 😂

[@AllYourMemeAreBelongToUs]

12:06 “Now across languages we sometimes find phonological systems that have some kind of typically central vowel that’s the result of processes of reduction or epenthesis or is in some way restricted to weak prosodic positions we can find this kind of restricted vowel in French German and some accents of English including RP. Now I can understand that phonologists want a label for this phenomenon but I don’t see how can have exclusive writes to the name schwa because all over the planet that word is indelibly associated with this symbol which means a mid central unrounded vowel that’s just as stressable as any other vowel on the IPA chart and which

[@DrKat213]

This is so helpful! It drives me crazy that all the intro linguistics textbooks written by Americans for American audiences do this. I now have complete confidence to tell my students to throw that symbol in the trash during our unit on English phonetics and just stick with schwa. My young and mostly West Coast students already have trouble enough with all their back and low vowels not mapping onto any textbook transcriptions. Thanks for this video!

[@shibolinemress8913]

This video took me back to my 6th grade German class, learning to pronounce ö, ü and ä. We often burst out laughing because we felt so silly at the time! Now having lived here in Germany since 1985 it's second nature. Thanks for the memories, though!

[@stoferb876]

In swedish the sound is somewhere between what we would call a short "A" and an "Ö" so I can often hear a difference between what is supposed to be an "uh", but wether it sounds more like A or Ö in my ears depends more on the particular english accent than wether it's stressed or unstressed.

[@Meevious]

As an RP speaker, I certainly differentiate between the vowel that starts "annul" (~the schwa~) and the one in the syllable that ends it (and starts "umbrella"). Some internal gymnastics are required for their alternation. I also draw a distinction between the vowel in "up" and the one in "harp" (or "card" and "bud" from your chart), but those two can be made without moving a muscle - the only difference is the length (u is truncated). This is a surprising revelation to a lot of English speakers and many won't believe it. The proof is to _sing_ words like "sum" and "psalm", "bum" and "balm" etc. at the same pitch, extending the vowel. The victim won't know, themself, which they're singing! ;) I love the X-ray segments btw!

[@tavosmatamachado]

I'm a Brazilian Literature scholar, with a PhD in English Lit. As I'm applying for tenured positions in universities here, I'm having to brush up on my linguistics, since many positions expect us to teach both literature and language - and oh my god, this channel is a GOLDMINE! Thank you so much for your quality work!

[@WordAte]

As a native American English speaker beginning to learn French, closing in on Dutch fluency, and continuing the arduous task of learning Mandarin, I find these videos extremely helpful to reflect on my native tongue. Merci beaucoup, dankjewel, and xie xie ni.

[@134Flor]

I really love your videos! Not only do you know a lot, but also manage to convey your knowledge in a clear and entertaining way, which I think is soo veery important for students ♥️ Not to mention all the many real-life examples, I really enjoy watching your videos! Just a thank you note from a Translation student in Argentina 😊 Oh, btw... Is it a common thing for natives to invent a personal phonetic alphabet? I loved that anecdote 😂

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you! Since posting the video, a couple of natives have said they did the same for their accent.

[@bendonaldson9026]

Hello my lovely friend

[@alexisvl3253]

this is really interesting to me, as an american with an east coast accent, ʌ and ə sound distinctly different to me. my tongue is in a different place when i make them. more open, more back just like how the chart shows. now i'm really curious if other people who learned to speak near me do this too or if it's something i've picked up somewhere

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

I've always wondered, do RP speakers not intuitively consider the shwa to be the unstressed allophone of the NURSE vowel? I can't explain why, but I feel like I have, through the years, perceived through off hand comments here and there from RP speakers that that's how they subconsciously think of it.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Gimson (1962): "It is possible to treat /ə/ as an unaccented allophone of /ɜː/, since it may be claimed that no true opposition between the vowels exists." And he points out that "were" can be weakened to /wə/ and we have variation like "amateur" /ɜː/~/ə/. Then there's the hesitation sounds /əm/ and /ɜː/. My 13-year-old self sometimes transcribed lettER with my NURSE symbol. So I think (many) RP-type speakers feel their schwa is more like NURSE than like STRUT. Presumably this would be even stronger for London/Oz type speakers with a STRUT not far from [a].

[@untziggy4]

Minimal pair for lettER and NURSE in RP: Forward /ˈfɔːwəd/ and foreword /ˈfɔːwɜːd/ Both have an unstressed mid central unrounded vowel in the last syllable, but in the second it is held for longer duration.

[@primalaspie]

@@untziggy4 Stress is treated differently across separate morphemes than it is within a single morpheme, so I would hesitate to label this as minimal.

[@omp199]

​@@DrGeoffLindsey Like you, I invented my own alphabets, as a child, for representing the sounds of English. I don't know if my initial version has survived - I will have to sort through my old stuff - but at some point I decided that many of the vowels came in pairs: a short vowel and a long counterpart that differed only in length. I perceived the "ur" in "nurse" as nothing other than a long version of the "a" in "comma". Similarly for the vowels in "peer" and "pit", "pear" and "pet", "par" and "putt", "pour" and "pot", and "pure" and "put". I was very confused when I discovered dictionaries with pronunciation guides based on IPA and found that they disagreed with my contention that these vowels simply differed in length. I don't know if it was a genuine feature of my accent, or if I was just bad at perceiving differences in vowel quality. My family was middle-class, so my accent was probably RP or something close to it.

[@k.umquat8604]

@@untziggy4 so it's a length difference rather than a phonemic difference

[@DeFaulty101]

Dr. Lindsay, I'm a young person who, much like yourself, has written my own phonemic alphabet just out of intuition, and has struggled with a number of decisions made by authorities in linguistics that were not intuitive to me. You have helped me to feel sane. There are plenty of sources asking me to distinguish between the vowel sounds of certain words which, to my understanding, are using the same vowel; 'father' and 'pot' for example. I do understand that accents can certainly render such vowel sounds distinct in theory, but occasionally, even the demonstrations didn't sufficiently distinguish them. I couldn't be sure it wasn't my ear, but I was training it very hard... This helps to put my mind at ease. So too has your video on the sustained "R" sound and formant frequencies. So many people have argued that the 'R' is only ever a consonant or, at best, part of a diphthong, but certainly, in my dialect, there are words with every combination of vowel letter and R which are pronounced as the same monophthong. And your video suggesting that there's a 'sh' sound after the 'T' in many words ending, for instance, with 'ture' like 'torture,' 'tincture,' 'puncture,' and so on. I guess I just want you to know that, again and again, you help me feel sane.

[@ajs11201]

Brilliant illustration of your point at 9:14. Thanks for including it!

[@dflynn]

Brilliant video; I lol’d several times. I’ll make sure to recommend this video and your channel to my phonology students! (Btw, your general argument applies to Canadian English, it seems, except that some conservative speakers distinguish ʌ and ə before ɹ, e.g. currant /ˈkʌɹǝnt/ vs. current /ˈkəɹǝnt/)

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Many thanks Darin. I'm particularly pleased/relieved because it's harder to find confirmation for CanE. For the conservative speakers, could we treat currant as STRUT-commA and current as NURSE-lettER? E.g. /ə/ versus /ə˞ / ?

[@dflynn]

@@DrGeoffLindsey Absolutely, though [ɚ] is just /əɹ/ in my Canadian mind, so distinguishing _currant_ from _current_ in this way may require contrastive syllabification, e.g. /ˈkə.ɹənt/ vs. /ˈkəɹ.ənt/, which is a bit of a stretch, eh? As you may know, the M-W treats the "traditional" distinction between /ʌɹ/ and /əɹ/ precisely in terms of syllabification, e.g. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flourish

[@abj136]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I’m from southern Ontario, and around here, bubble has the U sounding as the video sound of ^ STRUT, but the trailing schwa vowel is markedly different. Here, -ble sounds identical to bull (or near but shorter), and has the same vowel as foot. This vowel does NOT sound like all those schwa pronouncers at the start of your video.

[@abj136]

And to be clear to readers, bulb has the same U as strut, not that same as bull.

[@sethjm]

@@DrGeoffLindsey as a CanE speaker from Southern Ontario, the two vowels ʌ / ə are quite different from each other to my ear: country /'kʌn.tɹi/ vs. control /kən.'tɹol/ (and not just because of the stress - I pronouce undone pretty confidently as /ʌn'dʌn/). It took some thinking to come up with schwa examples but the two schwas (with differing stresses) in syllabus /'sɪ.lə.bəs/ vs. the word bus /bʌs/ feel completely different and forced if I try to make them sound the same. Edit: thought of another comparison in unstressed contexts: Russia /'rʌ.ʃʌ/ vs. luscious /'lʌ.ʃəs/.

[@tedc9682]

In American English (AE), "schwa" represents two distinct things. [1] The specific sound written /ə/ which is similar to /ʌ/, and [2] a "reduced" vowel. AE speakers reduce many unstressed vowels -- but they don't pronounce them all /ʌ/. Instead, they make a variety of sounds. The whole point is that these reduced vowels are NOT pronounced precisely. Sadly, many AE dictionaries use /ə/ to represent this, as if it was a single sound. So foreigners attempt to produce that vowel sound, even though native speakers do not do so.

[@W_Qimuel]

Perhaps the dictionaries are trying to simplify their pronunciation guides by using an “inclusive” schwa. The word “stomach”, for example, might sound like \'stʌmʌk\, \'stʌmək\, or \'stʌmɪk\. Maybe some lexicographers consider using a single symbol for all reduced unstressed vowels to be more practical? ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[@mihaliprefti2507]

Is the vowel in nut / mother same as in but? Here comes the role of the teacher to clear up the phenomena. What symbols should be used to render the vowel contrast between nut/ mother and but(unstressed), under, etc…

[@shautora]

That’s because the dictionaries are giving phonemic, rather than phonetic, spellings.

[@ASB-is-AOK]

YES! Thank you for "spelling" it out, if you will. Some reduced vowels sound just like STRUT, but not often and not always. And if we're using a schwa to represent the whole set of reduced vowels, we shouldn't also be using it to represent a regular fully-pronounced STRUT vowel too.

[@buchelaruzit]

@@mihaliprefti2507 wait i'm so confused are you talking about the 'e' in mother or are you equating the 'u' in nut with the 'o' in mother, which are NOT the same sound at all (even if it can be pronounced the same depending on accent). to me nut has schwa, mother has strut/short 'o' then schwa, and but has schwa

[@Sharpman76]

This is really funny to me, because I'm a native speaker from New Jersey and I have a very marked contrast between the two sounds. When I learned about the existence of the schwa I didn't believe it at first, because in my ideolect they are certainly allophones, but upon further investigation I do indeed pronounce them differently, and it does in fact follow the rule that the "schwa is never stressed." Interestingly, in my head the schwa is *either* an allophone of small-caps-i ("ih") *or* turned-v ("uh") depending on the context. When I pronounce "lemon" or "motion" it feels more like an allophone of "ih," and when I pronounce "comma" or "against" it feels more like an allophone of "uh." And in some words, I have both phenomena (e.g "elephant" > "el(uh)f(ih)nt"); bizarre, huh? Though, given the fact that I pronounce the schwa like a weaker intermediary between the two sounds proper, it does make sense. In "undone," I pronounce both vowels with a turned v, and in my thinking, this is precisely because the first u gets a secondary stress. So no, at least for me, the Emperor is wearing quite a fine robe, and my eyes are not mistaken, and I'd rather you quit making accusations about his supposed nudity. /s

[@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410]

This is pretty much the same for me, I'd seen stuff about it before with something called the 'weak vowel merger' Due to stress based allophony, everything gets fiddly and complicated lol.

[@workinprogress5431]

Sitting here saying "strut" and "comma" to myself over and over until it loses all meaning. But it did make me realize western Kentucky (I think I'm a fair representative of the accent) does have a slight difference between the two. It's not huge but definitely noticable and feels incredibly strange to force them to be identical. I noticed the tip of my tongue remains in the same spot, but my throat and rear tongue drop/open a bit differently. But it's so close I'd have to record myself in casual speech to be sure.

[@supercaptinpanda6787]

I'm from new york city and I do the exact same thing in the exact same way.

[@sharonminsuk]

Thank you, me too! (Me too on the pronunciation, and me too on being from New Jersey.) The only difference being, I have always been aware of the distinction between the two sounds. I could never understand the dictionaries claiming they are both pronounced the same!

[@Nsmp22]

My dialect is similar. It looks like the contextual distinction you're noticing depends on whether the syllable is open or closed. All of the examples you gave that felt like "ih" were in closed syllables, whereas all of the examples you gave that felt like "uh" were in open syllables.

[@thaumaTurtles]

That ending was brilliant! Cracked me up, along with the phonetic "clusterfuck" midway through. Great and informative video

[@patrickrano8797]

Did you seriously put the phonetic symbols for "cluster fuck" up there subliminally when you said confusion? I spit out my wine. You are both hilarious and educational.

[@alexandruianu8432]

As a native Romanian speaker, I can clearly hear the difference between the two, as /ʌ/ is much more strongly associated with /a/ (written a), while /ə/ is it's own category (written ă). Interestingly, I can also clearly hear a difference in your speech, even if your /ʌ/ is closer to /ə/, and you may not perceive a difference. I've also heard speakers of some American accents merge them fully, but not all of them, as in any piece of American English media I can hear the distinction for most participants. I think the reason is that near merger occurs by first fronting the vowel, instead of closing it, in which case, I would call it close enough to an /ə/.

[@emile_fa]

Same here, I do hear a slight difference

[@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410]

as an English speaker, yeah pretty much that's it. I'd say I front the vowel to a central position and in syllables after the stressed one I raise it quite high such that it's very similar to the vowel I have in 'kitten' or 'chips' (though word finally it's instead a bit lower and is around the turned-a vowel, very close to /a/)

[@ЮраН-ь2к]

As a native Russian speaker, I often don't distinguish /ʌ/ and /a/, but /ʌ/ and /ə/ are different, and /ə/ is almost close to Russian /э/ , but really I don't clearly hear it.

[@ancalyme]

As another Romanian speaker who can hear a vs ă vs â, and also hear German ä vs e and u vs ü, and Hungarian a vs á, english writing is a mess, has squat to do with how any of the words are pronounced and is more of hindrance than helpful when teaching the spoken language.

[@Bradoslav]

I love videos that point out phemonena I would never notice otherwise. I speak American English and I differentiate comma and strut, as well as most of the other words shown here, though my vowels have a lot in common with Canadian English so I wonder if that is a contributing factor.

[@adamlaceky8127]

In my dialect of American English, the word "above" has two distinct schwa sounds. The initial schwa "a" is shorter than the schwa "o." Both are schwas, but there's a difference. The U in "thump" is also different from other schwa sounds. It's lower in the throat, and drawn out a bit more. There's almost an H between the U and the M. Thu-h-mp. I was born in Oklahoma, moved to Montana when I was 12. Had to learn to lose the Southern twang. In my mind, I mingle my native Oklahoma accent with my adopted Montanan. About 23 years ago, I learned I'm autistic. Autistic people are supposed to not understand nonverbal communication. FALSE. My special interest is speech and language, so I've become attuned to inflection and tone of voice. English has a natural rhythm and inflection. It makes a big difference where you are. Speech patterns vary from place to place. Country & Western music sounds the way it does because it mimics the speech patterns of the American South. It's not Western. It's Southern.

[@pskocik]

Yeah, I have also always believed that the American /ʌ/, while being much closer to the schwa than its British counterpart, is distinct from it by being positioned deeper in the throat (where the H sound is also produced). Even if you try to produce words such as done, struct, or gut, with a long stressed schwa they will sound a bit different to how Americans typically say them, IMO. In some words, the distinction seems more significant than in others. This video made me google for the details a bit, and I found this this interesting excerpt in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology: "Although the notation /ʌ/ is used for the vowel of STRUT in RP and General American, the actual pronunciation is closer to a near-open central vowel [ɐ] in RP and advanced back [ʌ̟] in General American. The symbol ⟨ʌ⟩ continues to be used for reasons of tradition (it was historically a back vowel) and because it is still back in other varieties." That would confirm the theory that ə ≠ ʌ. Interestingly, it also seems that it's RP that should be adjusting its transcription of the vowel-from ʌ to some ɐ.

[@handitover.]

@@pskocik that’s not what the video is about, though, we all already know they’re different. But careful, is “distinct” the word you wanna use here?? Can you think of any minimal pairs in standard American English between /ə/ and /ʌ/? If not then they’re just allophones in standard American English and thus there’s literally no reason why we need to rack our brains trying to use two different syllables for them depending on some (prescriptive! arbitrary!) rule. Like sure, there is technically a difference between [l] and [ɫ] in English but we don’t bother using separate symbols in general ipa transcription because they don’t make any meaningful differences. Same with schwa and caret, no?

[@pskocik]

@@handitover. Thank you. My knowledge was hazy on phones vs phonemes an // vs []. Read up on it now (many commenters here explain it well too), and I believe you're right. It does make sense /ə/ and /ʌ/ could be the same phonEME in AmE with the phones/sounds [ə] and [ʌ] being realizations of that phoneme.

[@robdawson2]

ah, as a Bostonian and a teacher of English in Budapest, Hungary, I was very happy to see this excellent video.

[@jenniferthompson7497]

I’m a speech language pathologist practicing for 25 years. Not an expert in phonological transcription by any means. I was taught the stressed/unstressed shwa as well but I really think it’s the impact of the surrounding sounds that moves the shwa back and forward in the mouth and makes the small distinction. So in “but” it’s /ə/ because of co-articulation pulling the tongue forward for more efficiency but in “gut” the anterior /g/ pulls the tongue back for /ʌ/.

[@goldeneddie]

Yep, you nailed it.

[@DanDjurdjevicplus]

In Serbian, the schwa is quite distinct from ʌ. The schwa is not even written as it is seen as the short essential sound made when joining 2 consonants. So “Serb” is written as “Srb”. I hear this vowel used a lot in New Zealand English, usually in place of “i” (the way they say “stick” would be transcribed phonetically in Serbian as “stk”). That’s very different from both “strut” and “comma” in my South African / Australian dialect. I definitely say “strʌt” and “commʌ”. However I do say “bərth”.

[@wintersummers3085]

I am an American and I feel like there is a distinction other than stress between the words strut and comma, but I also pronounce a lot of words like comma and not nearly as many like strut.

[@Hylebos75]

What distinction? The fact that comma is longer sounding because it doesnt end with a consonant chopping it off? They are both the exact same 'uh' sound to me otherwise.

[@JoelDZ]

I'd always wondered about this! It's a shame so many influential organizations are still using such a misleading transcription system. Incredible video, well written and well presented.

[@marioluigi9599]

Well maybe if you just listened to someone else speaking English like maybe a Canadian or an Australian instead of just focusing on yourself as an American all the time, you'd have realised that lots of people make a clear distinction between the two sounds and that's why they're represented differently in the dictionary. If you'd done that, you wouldn't have been so confused, would you?

[@marioluigi9599]

So.... I'm not sure about "misleading". At most you could say that dictionaries published in America should have a note saying that most Americans don't actually distinguish the two sounds, although they ARE distinguished in most other versions of English, including the official English version of English from England, the birthplace of English.

[@JoelDZ]

@@marioluigi9599 I'm from Sweden my man

[@JoelDZ]

@@marioluigi9599 Also, dude go take a hike. Why even comment this? You come here, condescendingly and wrongly call me American and imply I don't talk to Canadians or Australians. Canadians who, by the way, don't even have the distinction. And then you're not just condescending towards me and wrong about me, you're also wrong on the actual facts in your second comment. Go watch the next video on this channel and see whether it's really true that English as spoken in England maintains the distinction, or if it might only be a minority of dialects in England that do. And please don't speak to me again.

[@marioluigi9599]

@@JoelDZ Lol calm down. Don't be so upset. It's not even that serious. I imply that you don't talk to Australians or Canadians? Well you can't have done if you never heard the distinction between the two sounds and if it was always a mystery to you that couldn't figure out why the dictionaries would make a distinction there. And plenty of Canadians DO have the distinction. Just read some of the comments on here. Like, what are you even talking about?

[@alanjmcc]

Finally! Have been bugged for years by phoneticians who insist there's a difference between the turned v and the turned e, that we should use different phoneme markers for stressed vowels than for unstressed vowels. Could never make sense of it, particularly since it applies to only one vowel! This video is like a decree from heaven, releasing me from a completely silly senseless commandment. Thank you!

[@EnglezadelaAlaZ]

OMG It is amazing. I love this . I found your videos only about 30 minutes ago and I am so happy I did. xxx . I am Romanian so English is my second language and I've been trying for so long to find something like this. I am dealing with a lot of problems with Romanian teachers that I don't agree with about sounds, pronunciations, because many say they are not important and they throw ESOL at me. I am not a teacher, never finished a University but I kind of have some experience with English only because back in 1991 I left Romania for Hungary, Budapest and I had to learn Hungarian and English just talking with people cause I couldn't afford school xxx . Anyway, now I live in the UK, I've been living here since 2013 so a lot of my English has improved or so I think and hope

[@TechnocratiK]

I'm an Anglophone (bilingual) Canadian from Montreal (and the 'Mon-' is pronounced more like 'bun' than like 'con'), and I can assure you that the schwa and turned v are two very different sounds to me.

[@primalaspie]

The complete lack of minimal pairs with any other sounds makes schwa hard to categorize. It has no minimal pairs (in my speech) with the STRUT, KIT, FOOT, or LOT/PALM vowels, meaning it can very well be expressed as any of these sounds without confusion. For that matter, it does occur as phonetically very similar to all of those but the merged LOT/PALM vowel in my speech. (STRUT word finally; FOOT before labial or velar consonant; KIT otherwise) EDIT: I'm not sure of how the FOOT and KIT pronunciations are distributed word- initially. A word like 'initial' has the same vowel as FOOT, but 'enough' is pronounced very close to true IPA /ə/

[@primalaspie]

R and L are a bit weird though. r is velarized and has a labiodental coarticulation at the start of a stressed syllable, so 'awry' has the FOOT vowel but 'butter' does not. As for L, it is typically vocalized as a pharengealized back vowel somewhere in the range of oˀ~ʊˀ. I typically pronounce intervocallic l as light l unless it follows a back vowel in the same morpheme, but this isn't consistent.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Very interesting. If you come up with more info on your initial FOOT/KIT distribution, please let us know.

[@primalaspie]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I'm still not super satisfied with this explanation, but I've observed that it is raised to [ɵ] (for reference, my FOOT vowel is typically something like [ɵ̙ə̯]) when a phonetically high vowel is in the next syllable. I really don't like this explanation though because even though it accounts for all the variation systematically, it doesn't explain the lip-rounding and it also postulates a sort of vowel umlaut-esque sound shift that is otherwise completely absent from my speech.

[@ikkue]

I'm a native Thai speaker and they both seem pretty distinct to me. To me, /ʌ/ feels like อะ+เออะ and /ə/ feels like เออะ

[@paper2222]

i would also agree, as a native thai speaker, even if both ə and ʌ doesn't exist in thai.

[@danielcostagonzalez92]

I'm a 30 year old English teacher and absolutely no one has ever taught me this so clearly. Thank you so much. Also: I love 1984 reference hahahaha

[@kernicole]

Fascinating, as always. I wish your videos had been around when I was still teaching, but that was nearly 20 years ago. Thank you, too, for your phonetic synonym of "confusion". I didn't know it, but it's certainly expressive.

[@ezb6798]

I had to say “strut” and “comma” slowly several times to determine that I do use the same sound for the U of the first and the A of the second. Apparently my ear has been trained by my eye to hear the stressed and unstressed schwa sounds as different vowels, even though I actually say them the same way (with only the difference of stress). Fascinating!

[@klondike3112]

@@jayplay8140 This is English we're talking about here, if you didn't already realize. A, E, O, and U all regularly sound completely identical.

[@klondike3112]

@@jayplay8140 So, you're stating that AmE is inherently not correct?

[@klondike3112]

@@jayplay8140 The MAJORITY of accents don't differentiate A and U in strut and comma. Was that not the entire point of this 14 minute video that I presume you watched as well?

[@klondike3112]

@@jayplay8140 Ooooooh we have an elitist on our hands! The rest of the world laughs at you and your miserable island. I hope that registers loud and clear, tory.

[@NoNumbersAfterName]

I'm American, and I have different sounds for ʌ and ə. ʌ is the standard "uh" (what I learned in elementary school as "short u"), while ə is more diminished, sort of an "enh" sound. But both can be stressed. Where I had confusion in college with linguistics class is when they insisted that there were two schwas in English: ə and "crossed i" which was ɪ but shifted towards ə. Very confusing, because I didn't have a distinction there. "The schwa in 'about' is different from the schwa in 'waited'." No. No it isn't. Since IPA became popular everywhere, crossed i has completely disappeared from the discussion, so I'm not sure why that confusion was there in the first place. But yes, I couldn't change "waited" to "waitud" and use the same pronounciation.

[@cogitoergosum9069]

To me, "waited" doesn't have a schwa sound; it has the kit vowel instead. Kind of how _roses_ and _Rosa's_ are different

[@cogitoergosum9069]

*something like the kit vowel

[@NoNumbersAfterName]

@@cogitoergosum9069 Yeah, I've heard the roses/Rosa's distinction described before, but I also don't have that distinction. "Rose is" is distinct from "roses"/"Rosa's" though.

[@cogitoergosum9069]

@@NoNumbersAfterName Interesting. All of those are distinct for me.

[@sharonminsuk]

I was confused all my life before watching this video; and now am still confused, but in a different way. I am American, from around the northeast but mostly New Jersey. To me, the two sounds are completely distinct. I don't have any background in linguistics and am mystified by all the different symbols, but the schwa was introduced to me at a young age, when learning to read by the "phonics method". At that time, it briefly made sense because what I learned, reflected how I actually speak. The unstressed schwa in "comma" versus what they called the "short u" in strut. (Never heard it referred to as a "strut vowel" nor was familiar with the inverted v symbol. But the distinction between the sounds was unmistakable and not in the least confusing.) But since then, I have always been confused by American dictionaries, which as you point out, strangely suggest that schwa is used in all the places where I use short u. Usually they use "about" as the example, saying that the inverted e or schwa represents "a as in about", to which I always thought, "huh?" (pronounced with a schwa!) To me, the a in "about" is the u in strut. All these years I've just written it off and ignored these anomalous descriptions of pronunciation. Your video clears this up for me, by showing that I'm not crazy, and that this difference is real. On the other hand, now I'm confused by many of the things you said. For one, you seem to suggest that for most Americans, there is indeed no difference, and that they are using schwa for all those sounds. But I'm not buying it. I can't think of any American accent I'm familiar with, or any individual I have known, that pronounces the a in "about" as anything other than a short u (strut). Also, I have no idea what you mean by a "stressed schwa". The guy in your video, about whom you said "this fellow is using schwa for both sounds, and that's why he's confused" - it sounded like short u to me! I guess I still don't know what a schwa is supposed to be. There are definitely some mysteries here that need further clarification! (And by the way, I would never spell the schwa sound as "uh", which is clearly a short u as in strut! Although I might spell it "ugh", as in the sound of disgust!)

[@colevonvorys9028]

Im from central Jersey and i was gonna say the same thing. There were also a few differences, especially with er’s and ul/le where they are way in the back.

[@brianross9753]

I’m a native speaker and I definitely use different vowels for the two vowels in London and rumpus.

[@Kram1032]

interesting. As an ESL Germanophone native, when I pronounce some of these example words in English, these *are* different to me. Double and Consult both have two different sounds to me. As far as I can tell, the difference is, that the ʌ sounds ever so slightly more nasaly and closer to å whereas the ə is slightly closer to something "purely" o-like (though to be clear, neither is that, it's just about proximity) Mouthwise, ʌ very clearly *feels* further back in the throat rather than right in the center where ə us,

[@boosterh1113]

Might be a little bit late to this, but I believe I've just realized the first clear distinction I've ever personally heard between Canadian English and General American. In Canadian English, the two vowels in words like "stomach" and "Russia" are noticeably different.

[@floepiejane]

I'm from NY and these sounds are different there too. This video is extremely general.

[@glenndiddy]

I don't understans how you can double up the uh sound in those words at all. Maybe it's because speaking Dutch forces you to make sounds not many other languages can comprehend

[@gregmark1688]

I began to understand this difference while trying to understand the difference between "어" and "으" in Korean. This has taught me that we English speakers add an un-transcribed schwa-like sound to at least half of the consonants that come out of our mouths. (It becomes very noticeable because Koreans very deliberately don't do that. A word spelled "os" in Korean is pronounced like "ot", because there's no proper way to say an 's' without adding another vowel sound. Also, Mirriam-Webster must be pretty high if they think the two vowels in "fungus" sound the same in America! lol

[@sorry9861]

i am from new england and yeah we say fun-ghiss

[@goombacraft]

Those vowels sound the same in GAE

[@Jellybeansatdusk]

I love that he chose “double” because that’s the moment when I really heard it. I was able to say it in my usual accent and I actually heard the different there. So that was a good word lol

[@polanve]

One of the wittiest videos I've ever seen! All you need!

[@CCNuck]

This is fascinating, because in my Canadian (British Columbian) accent - which is generally thought of as very similar to a Californian accent - I feel that there is definitely a difference between the two sounds. Like, the upside-down-e schwa 'disappears' more. In "under", the U and the E are different. I feel like the schwa in my accent is almost an absence - a connection.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

We don't need to think of a schwa in the second syllable of your 'under' at all. It could be /ˈəndr/.