why is the pronunciation of english so unstable?

Charlie   Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:28 am GMT
Mein goodness. Don't mention the war.
Travis   Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:57 am GMT
Hast du eine Problem mit Deutsch, Charlie?
vincent   Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:03 am GMT
So there's no solid "phonetical core"? I cannot understand how people throughout the world can manage understanding each other. Yes, that's a good idea, let's establish an Academy of the English language, with prescriptive norms and all the stuff!
Is there a plan to do so?
Kirk   Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:23 am GMT
<<I cannot understand how people throughout the world can manage understanding each other.>>

Well, obviously English speakers all over the world *do* manage to understand each other just fine without an Academy. Academies, due to their inherently artificial nature, have relatively little influence on actual language usage and practically no influence on phonology, which is where many English dialects differ.
vincent   Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:50 am GMT
Kirk,
but this way english will soon split into many varieties no more mutually intelligible. Remember what occured with latin. I we want english keep being a useful tool to communicate on a worldwide scale, we must "fix" it.
Travis   Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:11 am GMT
>>Kirk,
but this way english will soon split into many varieties no more mutually intelligible. Remember what occured with latin. I we want english keep being a useful tool to communicate on a worldwide scale, we must "fix" it.<<

The fundamental matter here, though, is that the area of greatest variation and highest speed of divergence, by far, between English dialects is phonology, and this is the same area which any kind of Academy would have the very least influence. The real only area which any Academy could really truly influence, the formal literary language, is the same area where there is the very least variation to begin with.

Consequently, even if one could avoid the significant political problems that would be associated with trying to create a single Academy for English as a whole, considering the pluricentric nature of English, it would still be rather pointless if the reason for doing so were to try to stem the divergence of English dialects today. Such might be useful if the goal in mind were to create a new, better English orthography, but that in itself is an extremely difficult goal in practice, would likely have even greater political problems than trying to simply establish an Academy in and of itself, and furthermore is likely not that good of an idea in reality anyways.
vincent   Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:41 am GMT
So which english should we learn? Which pronunciation? Which linguistic norm?
Travis   Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:57 am GMT
>>So which english should we learn? Which pronunciation? Which linguistic norm?<<

If one is speaking from a non-native speaker standpoint, most likely the standard language associated with that which one is most likely to be associated, but also, if one is to actually be staying in an English-speaking area for an extended period of time, potentially the English dialect spoken in that particular area, with varying influence from the closest standard form.

If one is speaking from a native speaker standpoint, of course the dialect natively spoken in the area one is from.

As for norms, there are two overall standard forms, Received Pronunciation and General American, but one must remember that these are actually quite different in nature. Received Pronunciation is for the most part a particular fixed quantity, like Standard Hochdeutsch, but it does have some degree of internal variation. And yet, it is far more unitary in nature than General American, which is more a grab bag of very widespread features, or often more like widely absent features, in NA English dialects in the US. While one can speak of individuals actually speaking Received Pronunciation in Real Life, one cannot really speak of individuals truly speaking General American as such, but rather just a range of different dialects that generally fall under the auspices of that usually considered to be such.

Of course, then, I do not see any reason why people should necessarily speak such standard forms (or in the case of General American, dialects generally conforming to that considered as standard).
Mxsmanic   Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:51 am GMT
There is considerable variation in both RP and GAE.

GAE has the greatest number of native speakers; RP has virtually none. GAE has fewer diphthongs (only the required three) and no triphthongs. In many cases, the pronunciation is closer to spelling as well, since GAE is rhotic and lacks intrusive 'r'.

One hears about equal variations in RP and in GAE. In GAE, it results from tiny differences in native pronunciation; in RP, it results from the influence of native pronunciation on the learning of RP (since there are practically no native speakers of RP). The net result is the same. And while RP is supposedly a fixed standard, it is sufficiently vague that one still hears variations within the standard, just as in GAE.

Overall, both RP and GAE can be considered standards, especially for ESL students. If you put two speakers of GAE or two speakers of RP together, they may not sound identical, but the differences are so small that they will be hard to perceive, much less identify.
Travis   Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:17 am GMT
One thing, though, is that it is not really firmly tacked down what GAE really is to begin with. For instance, not all dialects thought of as being "GAE" necessarily have the same set of vowel distinctions in all positions, as such dialects do vary with respect to whether they have a complete Mary-merry-marry merger or not and to whether they have the cot-caught merger or not. They also may or may not have the wine-whine merger or the pin-pen merger. Such do not constitute "tiny differences" in themselves, especially for something thought of as a standard form of a language, and such ignores many other phonological details which are variable in dialects commonly thought of as falling under the umbrella of GAE, such as the raising of /{/ and /E/ before /N/.
MaintiensLeDroit   Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:03 am GMT
>>but this way english will soon split into many varieties no more mutually intelligible. Remember what occured with latin. I we want english keep being a useful tool to communicate on a worldwide scale, we must "fix" it. <<

Yeah but we got something these days that they didn't have back when Latin was splitting... MOVIES and TVs! See we can learn different dialects and what they mean through these mediums and because the change is gradual we won't notice that it's changing too much because we'll still understand it! Kinda sucks for new learners but heck all languages got their own little quirks.
vincent   Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:18 am GMT
But will english have the same role and prestige Latin used to have?
Benjamin   Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:12 pm GMT
Mxsmanic, I'm not sure that I'd agree that there are 'practically no native speakers of RP', because I'm one, and I wasn't aware that my position was so unusual to the point where it would be possible to suggest that there were 'practically none' of us.
MaintiensLeDroit   Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:55 pm GMT
Dude I thought that loadsa people spoke RP. Especially in South England and the suburbs around London and that.
Supriya   Tue Apr 25, 2006 4:05 pm GMT
wow...all the posts seem very interesting..but i have a very simple n a cliche question to ask...why in the world do we pronounce "put" and "but" as differently? can someone please solve this mystery for me?