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How do you pronounce the first vowel in these two words? It seems that many speakers and dictionaries use [i] for "zero", but I have never adopted this pronunciation. Mine seems to be closer to [I] in both words. Are these pronunciations specific to certain regions?
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This is the serious-Sirius merger. Outside of North America, everyone uses a vowel other than their KIT vowel in 'zero' and 'hero'. Non-rhotic accents usually use their NEAR vowel in these words, while rhotic ones use the FLEECE vowel. In North America, most speakers have no tense-lax distinction before intervocalic /r/. The actual realization may be [i] or [I] or something in between, but there is no contrast between /Ir/ and /ir/, so 'mirror' and 'nearer' rhyme. However, there are some parts of North America where the distinction is preserved: Boston and New York, primarily, but also other parts of the Northeast (I think), and among older and/or non-rhotic speakers in the South.
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I think Guest is be touching on another issue though: some dictionaries show a pronunciation for these words along the lines of /"zi:.r\o:/, as if it were "Z-row" (as opposed to "zeer-o"). m-w.com, for example, gives two pronunciations for "zero" ( http://m-w.com/dictionary/zero ), even though you wouldn't expect the serious-Sirius merger to affect the pronunciation of a word like that.
I would transcribe this stuff as:
/"sI.r\i.@s/ unmerged "Sirius"
/"sI@`.i.@s/ merged "Sirius"
/"zI@`.o:/ most common pronunciation of "zero", for merged and unmerged speakers alike
/"zi:.r\o:/ variant pronunciation of "hero"
I've heard this variant pronunciation for "zero, hero" used by some people on TV, so I think it's common in some regions. (But not up here in Massachusetts.)
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Agh, typos:
<I think Guest is touching on>
<variant pronunciation of "zero">
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I've heard unmerged Southerners who use their FLEECE vowel for RP /I@r/_V.
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Hmm, I have "Z-row" for "zero" but "hear-oh" for "hero". I guess I must have only a partial merger.
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Well, the serious-Sirius merger is something different - it has to do with whether you pronounce pairs like "serious-Sirius" or "mirror-nearer" with the same vowels. I think this is just variation in the pronunciation of a small number of words, not a broad phonological issue.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I have heard /"hi:.r\o:/ "hee-row" used by some people, but the m-w.com only gives this type of pronunciation for "zero", and that fits with your pronunciations, so I think this phenomenon may be more common in "zero" than in "hero".
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