Do you pronounce ''world'' with one or two syllables?

Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:05 GMT
>>I think some people mistake themselves as pronouncing ''world'' with one syllable instead of two, because they look at the spelling which looks like it has one syllable, and think they actually pronounce it that way, when they really pronounce it as two syllables as if it were spelled ''wereld'' /w3`.@5d/ as it is in Dutch.<<

Again, this statement implies that you think that English-speakers in general pronounce the word <world> as two syllables, even though some (such as myself) say that it is pronounced as one syllable in their dialects.

>>I think we should adopt the Dutch spelling ''wereld'' for ''world'' for our language. It's much more phonetic than ''world'', which looks like it starts like the word ''war''.<<

Again, what is phonemic for one is not necessarily phonemic for another; such may be a suitable approximation of how the word in question is pronounced by you, but that doesn't mean such is so for all English-speakers.
Don   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:12 GMT
I believe that there are some people that actually do pronounce ''world'' as one syllable. But I also think that there are some other people that mistake themselves as pronouncing ''world'' with one syllable instead of two, because they look at the spelling which looks like it has one syllable, and think they actually pronounce it that way, when the really pronounce it as two syllables as if it were spelled ''wereld'' /w3`.@5d/ as it is in Dutch.

A similar thing happens the word ''parrot'', it ends in ''ot'', so some people mistake themselves as pronouncing it to rhyme with ''rot'', when in reality they use a schwa sound in the word as it's usually pronounced.
Don   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:13 GMT
The merriam-webster dictionary says that pronouncing it with either one or two syllables is optional, as I said before.
Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:22 GMT
Of course, cases which are more complicated are ones whether you have /r/ or /r=/ (a notation I prefer for what is [3`] when stressed and [@`] when unstressed) after a diphthong, at least in the dialect here. For example, should I consider the word "fire" to be /faIr/ or /faIr=/, and should its realization be considered one syllable or two syllables? Here such is realized as [f@I@`], which I'd interpret as not two syllables, but rather a "heavy syllable" containing a triphthong. I am also not sure whether the use of [@`] here is phonemic or just a particular positional allophone of /r/ (after a diphthong), but I'm now tending towards favoring treating it here just as an allophone. Hence, in my makeshift English orthography, for example, I'd write "fire" as <fair>, which'd be /faIr/ rather than as <faiyr>, which'd be phonemically /faIr=/.
Don   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:22 GMT
Travis,

You said on the other page of the thread that you though I was mistaking ''world'' as being a two syllable word for me. That's not the case. It is two syllables for me, /w3`.@5d/, not /w3`5d/.

<<what is phonemic for one is not necessarily phonemic for another>>

Yeah, <<baadhyr>> for ''bother'' (which is how you respell the word) is not phonemic for me, because I pronounce it /bQD@`/ not /bAD@`/.

I never said that everyone necessarily pronounced ''world'' as a two syllable word. I know that in nonrhotic accents, for example, it's definitely a one syllable word /w35d/.
Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:24 GMT
Don, I didn't say you necessarily spoke it as one syllable, I was just saying that treating such as two syllables does not apply to all English dialects.
Don   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 03:27 GMT
Travis,

You say that <wereld> is a nonphonemic spelling for some people. Well so is <baadhyr>. <baadhyr> is not phonemically right for me, because I pronounce it /bQD@`/ not /bAD@`/.
Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 04:04 GMT
The main thing though is that my makeshift orthography was neither designed nor *intended* for the full sum of English dialects altogether; rather, it was designed specifically for a particular subset of them, with the idea that other orthographies designed along very similar lines would be used for them, rather than trying to throw together a single "one size fits all" orthography, which would be unlikely to work well in practice, and would likely be little better than the current orthography.

This post, now in the dialect *here* (not SAE, but not *too* far from it as this is still in a formal register), except still including the /w/ versus /W/ distinction, in my makeshift orthography (just because):

Dha meen thing dho iz dhaet mai meeksjift oorthaagrafi waz niedhyr dezzaind noor *intendid* foor dha fyl sam av ingglisj daialekts oltagedhyr; raedhyr, it waz dezzaind spessiffikli oor a partikjulyr sabset av dhem, with dhi aidia dhaet adhyr oorthaagrafiez dezzaind along veri simmylyr lainz wud bi juuzd foor dhem, raedhyr dhaen traiing tu thro tagedhyr a singgyl "wan saiz fits ol" oorthaagrafi, hwitj wud bi anlaikli tu wyrk wel in praektis, aend wud laikli bi littyl bettyr dhaen dha kyring oorthaagrafi.
Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 04:11 GMT
I meant to say "dhaen dha kyrint oorthaagrafi." above.
Don   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 15:58 GMT
''rather than trying to throw together a single "one size fits all" orthography, which would be unlikely to work well in practice''

I think it would probably work better for to fit all dialects if you based your orthography more on traditional orthography. Say for example, using ''y'' for /j/ instead of ''j''. Using ''u'' for /V/ instead of ''a'', etc. Then you could use ''o'', ''au'' and ''ah'' for /Q/, /O/ and /A/.
Kirk   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 17:22 GMT
Travis,

Your spelling reform orthography sucks. Why are you trying to introduce an orthography that looks so funny that doesn't even take all dialects in consideration?

Traevis,

Yor spelling riform orthaagrafi saks. Wai aar yu trai'ing tu intraduus aen orthaagrafi dhaet luks so funni dhaet duzzan't ievan teek aal daialekts intu kansiddyreeshan?
Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 18:12 GMT
Don, there are a number of reasons why I haven't done such:

For starters, all the alveolar fricatives and alveopalatal affricates have been marked with <sj>, <tj>, <zj>, and <dj> for /S/, /tS/, /Z/, and /dZ/ respectively, which frees up <j> for use for /j/, as <j> cannot occur after /s/, /t/, /z/, and /d/ under normal conditions (that is, ones where there wasn't something between the two which happened to get elided, which can be marked with an apostrophe) in most dialects for which this was designed.

The reason for using <j> rather than <y> for /j/ is first consistency with other Germanic-language orthographies, which all use <j> for such, and also because <y> is already being used for marking /@`/ and syllabic consonants with <yr>, <yl>, <yn>, and <ym>.

The reason why I'm using <a> rather than <u> for /@/ ([V] when stressed) is because <u> is already used for representing not just one but two vowels, /U/ and /u/; while representing two with it is fine with the current system, it cannot handle trying to add a third vowel for such (as was the problem with trying to put /Q/ under <o>). Furthermore, such would be very confusing for many non-native English-speakers, as this is a very English-specific convention. Also, in word-final position, in very informal writing here, <a> is what is generally used for marking word-final /@/ anyways. Also, were /@/ to be marked with <u>, it would leave just <a> alone "empty", as /A/ is marked with <aa>, and /{/ is marked with <ae>.

As for <o>, <au>, and <ah>, <au> is not usable for such because it's already in use for marking the diphthong /aU/, <ah> is something I want to avoid because it would be inconsistent for marking perceived "longness" or "tenseness" (as in all other cases such is marked with doubling), and <o> is okay as long as /O/ is then shifted to <oa>, but then, again, most of NAE lacks a separate /Q/ in the first place.

"Kirk", the thing is that, first, to me, making an orthography that *looks* like the current one is of no use, and those who are primarily concerned with such probably could not appreciate things like being accurate phonemically in the first place; I'm more concerned with having an accurate and concise phonemic representation of a given set of dialects than with such kinds of things. Aesthetically, this orthography is more influenced by things like Dutch and German orthography, to various extents, than it is by the current English orthography, but that is primarily a side-effect of how various mappings were chosen for vowels and like.

As for taking all dialects in consideration, that is MUCH, MUCH easier said than done. I've basically conceded that such is impossible, if one is to use any orthography that is specifically phonemic for all of English today, in the first place, and if one is to create one orthography for all of English, it would *not* be phonemic, and would be little better than the cuurrent one we've already got.

Anyways, here is how the entire vowel system is mapped in this orthography:

<a> : /@/
<aa> : /A/
<ae> : /{/
<e> : /E/, /e/
<i> : /I/, /i/
<o> : /O/, /o/
<u> : /U/, /u/
<yr> : /@`/
<yl> : /5=/
<yn> : /n=/
<ym> : /m=/
<ai> : /aI/
<au> : /aU/
<oi> : /oI/
Lazar   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 18:39 GMT
I've got a question about L's. Is syllable-final /l/ velarized into [5] in Dutch (Sander)? and/or German (Travis)? Or is it still pronounced [l]?
Travis   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 18:53 GMT
German /l/ is realized alveolarly, always, which is one detail of German pronunciation that many English-speakers often miss. However, it is syllabicized when in the coda of an unstressed syllable with the vowel /E/ (which is subsequently lost), such as in words such as "engel" or "rütteln". However, in many dialects of Low Saxon (*not* German), syllable-final /l/ is velarized as [5].
Lazar   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 18:54 GMT
Okay, thanks.