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September 13

Mispronunciation by a British

Hi,

I've met a guy from Derby who mispronounced many words and I was wondering if it was because of his accent or if it was just him. He would say "boot" for "but" or "oop" for "up" but I've heard this is common in some parts of England. The words he couldn't pronounce were "Jakarta" (he would say Jikarta), Japan (Jipan) and Manila (Minila). Is that a common mistake? 42.118.51.93 (talk) 04:46, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Define "mistake". We all have an accent, and it leads to massive differences in the way many words are pronounced around the world, even by native English speakers. It is impossible most of the time to say that one pronunciation is right and another is wrong. As an Australian, I pronounce the verb sound in the second syllable of my username here in a way that most Americans don't understand. Spelling it doesn't help. It's that sound of the "o". Am I right, and all Americans wrong? Or, maybe I'm wrong, and all Americans are right. No, it's a pointless exercise saying who is right or wrong. HiLo48 (talk) 05:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I weep for the poor old Australian "o". What people have done with it is just tragic. There are now so many frankly weird and embarrassing ways this sound is pronounced, I've lost count. Many of them involve widening the mouth as if to say "ee" - absurd!. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:13, 14 September 2019 (UTC) [reply]

The standard pronunciation for the first vowel in those place names is a schwa ([ə] not [a]). It's easy to convert this [ə] to [ɪ]. I'm not sure whether this is common in Derby dialect. When you write "boot" do you mean [buːt] or [bʊt]? The latter is common for "but" in any Northern English or Scottish dialect, and might be stretched to a long vowel by someone speaking slowly or for emphasis. As HiLo48 writes above, there is wide variation worldwide in what is considered "correct". Dbfirs 06:23, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The type of schwa sound you note at the beginning of your explanation is sometimes called a schwi sound. --Jayron 32 12:10, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: This isn't schwi. Schwi is a sound that is pronounced [ɪ] in Received Pronunciation (or at least conservative Received Pronunciation) that has merged with /ə/ in accents with the weak vowel merger, such as Australian English. In those accents, the allophonic range of /ə/ is wider than in RP and so it's no surprise that "Japan" could be pronounced [dʒɪˈpæn] or something close to it (the palatal nature of the first consonant is a possible influence here). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You say, in the consecutive sentences, that the sound noted by Dbfirs as [ɪ] is not [ɪ], and then say that it is [ɪ] as in [dʒɪˈpæn]. How am I wrong then you agree with everything I said? I noted that Dbfirs explanation was called the schwi, the article I cited when doing so notes that this is the [ə] to [ɪ] conversion, you then say that it is said as [ɪ] and yet somehow I am wrong when I said the same thing? Can you explain? --Jayron 32 01:20, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: I'm talking about what's phonemically /ɪ/ in received pronunciation. The first vowels in "Jakarta", "Japan" and "Manilla" don't belong to the /ɪ/ phoneme. So I don't agree. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 06:53, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you're American. Basically, schwi is a vowel which is pronounced as the vowel in "kit" in Received Pronunciation (which is currently undergoing weak vowel merger just like AmE and AusE, but it's not yet as advanced in RP) and as the second vowel in "balance" in General American and General Australian. The second vowel of "rabbit" is an example of schwi. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:33, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article we currently have that most closely covers the accents of Derbyshire seems to be East Midlands English. As ObPersonal, I've lived in various parts of England (and Scotland) including Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Leicestershire all bordering Derbyshire (though not Derbyshire itself) and of course have met people from Derbyshire, and the particular pronunciations the OP reports seem to me to be entirely consistent with what I know of Derbyshire accents (bearing in mind that there are several). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.210.107 (talk) 11:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Those aren't mispronunciations, it's just his accent, which doesn't have the foot-strut split (like practically every English accent from the Midlands and the north) and also exhibits a weak vowel merger. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:17, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I know relatively little about regional variations of British accents. My perch has been in California for the past 47 years, on the Pacific Ocean where we regularly interact with people from those places. In my experience, pronunciations like "Jipan", "Jikarta" and "Minila" might be considered a bit clipped and casual, but nothing that would be considered an actual mispronunciation. Nobody would chastise someone saying "You should say JAHpan!" And there are about 40 million English language speakers here. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:33, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"JAHpan" sounds very strange. Jap rhymes with nap, cap, lap, tap, map, not with Ma, Pa, Jah. DuncanHill (talk) 08:47, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"JAHpan" sounds perfectly normal to me. That's how it is said in my dialect. Even though the short form "Jap" does rhyme with nap, etc. The full word is not pronounced "JAP - ANN" in my version of English. --Khajidha (talk) 13:53, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PS - In fact, anyone saying "JAP - ANN" around here would probably be perceived as making a racial slur.--Khajidha (talk) 13:54, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What dialect or region is that that pronounces Japan as JAHpan? Iapetus (talk) 13:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's more J'pan in Britain, I was making th point that Jah is nothing at all like the first vowel in Japan. DuncanHill (talk) 13:59, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Derby eh? In 1989 my party stopped at a pub in Derbyshire and I asked for cider. The young bartender did not understand, but the older bartender interpreted for him: "Soidah!" —Tamfang (talk) 23:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]