Pronunciation Differences in British and American English

Saudi Sadiq (Egypt)   Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:08 pm GMT
Why are nude and student said with /ju:/ in British English and as just /u:/ in American English?

Why is class pronounced as /kla:s/ in British English and as /klaes/ in American English?


Is the vowel in girl and word the same in British English and American English?
Guest   Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:21 pm GMT
"Why are nude and student said with /ju:/ in British English and as just /u:/ in American English? "

This is called yod-dropping and is simply a feature of American English.

"Why is class pronounced as /kla:s/ in British English and as /klaes/ in American English?"

This is called the bath-trap split and it came into existence in England after the American colonies were settled, so it did not spread to North America.

"Is the vowel in girl and word the same in British English and American English?"

Pretty much, but the American version is R-colored.
Jasper   Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:10 pm GMT
"Why are nude and student said with /ju:/ in British English and as just /u:/ in American English? "

:)

Hillbillies retain the /ju:/ pronunciation—a fact that never ceases to amuse me.
Timothy   Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:46 am GMT
Why are there so many dialects of Chinese or Arabic? When you have two groups of speakers separated, their languages eventually diverge. It's just the nature of language. (Although I think the globalization of movies and music will make them all begin to converge eventually.)
Lee   Thu Dec 24, 2009 12:48 pm GMT
>>Hillbillies retain the /ju:/ pronunciation—a fact that never ceases to amuse me.<<

That would be the Southerners Sir, they posses both manners, class and culture. Yankees? not so much, neither manner class or culture when dealing with them schmucks.
Uriel   Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:10 am GMT
They don't think much of ya'll, either. And not all Southerners are hillbillies.
Skippy   Fri Dec 25, 2009 4:58 pm GMT
Most southerners aren't hillbillies... "Hillbillies" tend to refer to people in Appalachia, but also people in the Ozarks... Generally mountainous areas.

If you want to use a derogatory expression for southerners in general, it's usually 'rednecks'.
Mark   Sat Dec 26, 2009 5:00 pm GMT
Isn't calling a southerner a Yank or Yankie more of a derogatory expression?

I mean mixing them up for their Northern counterparts is surely an invitation to have scorn poured upon you.
Jasper   Sat Dec 26, 2009 7:49 pm GMT
"Most southerners aren't hillbillies... "Hillbillies" tend to refer to people in Appalachia, but also people in the Ozarks... Generally mountainous areas. "

Skippy is correct.

Appalachians speak their own dialect, often impenetrable to even other Southerners. While this dialect is fascinating from a linguistics point of view, it's not a particularly euphonious one.
Timothy   Sat Dec 26, 2009 9:31 pm GMT
Hillbillies, Appalachians, etc, have an accent, not a dialect. I've traveled extensively all through Appalachia for over ten years as a truck driver, and while some of their pronunciation can be difficult to understand, I've never heard anyone speaking some "impenetrable dialect."

Mark: If you called a Southerner a Yankee, he probably wouldn't understand you were trying to insult him; he would probably think you just don't know what the word means. ALTHOUGH, in Central and South America, "Yankee" refers to ALL people from the USA.
ebert   Sat Dec 26, 2009 9:56 pm GMT
i dont understand how anyone who has heard appalachian would not see that its more than just 'accent'. from a general american standpoint, accent not withstanding, the grammatical and lexical characteristics can make it difficult to understand without some longterm contact.
Jasper   Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:29 am GMT
"i dont understand how anyone who has heard appalachian would not see that its more than just 'accent'. from a general american standpoint, accent not withstanding, the grammatical and lexical characteristics can make it difficult to understand without some longterm contact. "

Timothy, please read Ebert's comment; he said it as well as I could have.

Moreover, I believe that perhaps you are "too close to the eye of the hurricane." In a recent thread, I posted a link to an example of the Appalachian dialect. Most of the Anitmoon listeners had a great deal of trouble understanding the speaker.
Gato Fedorento   Sun Dec 27, 2009 1:47 am GMT
Why are nude and student said with /ju:/ in British English and as just /u:/ in American English?

///Why is Susan pronounced with /u:/ in British English?
Shoud'nt it be /'sju:s'n/ too?
Laura   Sun Dec 27, 2009 2:28 am GMT
I think these are minor pronunciation differences between American and British speakers, for foreign students of English this should not distract you from learning to lose your own accent first. My Chinese students used to ask me if they sounded "British or American" and I said, "Chinese." Each native language has its particular pronunciations of vowels and consonants that tends to be their default sound.

There are minor pronunciation differences regionally and culturally in the United States as well. With mass media, the differences seem to be lessening over time.

Some groups seem to prefer to have their own sound such as young people who make up their own slang and minority groups that create smaller communities within a larger one.
Andrew   Wed Dec 30, 2009 2:53 pm GMT
One thing that bothers me about this debate is the idea that there is such a thing as "British" English at all.

If you've been to Britain you'd realise quite quickly that there are over 500 regional variations of English spoken in Britain. What is meant by "British English" is technically known as "Received Pronounciation" (literally "the generally accepted way to pronounce English properly"). British English is more of an American invention to hide the fact that they don't like to be reminded that theirs is a regional variant of a much older language.

The concept of "British English" is rather nonsensical - it's like describing Japanese spoken in Japan as "Japanese Japanese" or, Russian spoken in Russia as "Russian Russian". English is the base language - the language of the English - Americans speak American English (which is quite different from English, in many, many ways).