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Vowel names, UK vs US
In the US, "Long A" refers to the vowel of "fate". In the UK, it refers to the vowel of "father". So what do they call the vowel of "fate" in the UK?
Also, what are the names of the vowels in the words "call" and "look"?
As an American, I'm familiar with "long A" referring to the vowel of "fate", and "broad A" referring to the vowel of "palm", but to be honest I don't even know what the names would be for the vowels in "call" and "look". Is there a consistent, widely recognized nomenclature at all?
It's much more useful to use IPA to specify phonemes and sounds.
Hmm. I'm not a native speaker of English, so I wouldn't know much about this, but don't school teachers in English speaking countries, when they teach kids how to read, generally use terms like "long I", "long E", "short A", "short E", "short O" etc. to refer to actual spoken vowel sounds? Surely they would need a name for every vowel.
They would probably say:
The a-sound in 'call' or the oo-sound as in 'look' (to distinguish it from the oo-sounds of 'food' and 'flood')
A good way to get your message across (without IPA) is to use lexical sets and call them the KIT vowel, the DRESS vowel, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_set
Most native English speakers are not familiar with IPA and it usually confuses them.
This is an interesting thread. I decided to flirt with a certain language, but I could not find a complete course easily until my library provided me with an older British course. It's fantastic UNTIL the British author tells me that the sound we'll be hearing sounds like such and such sound.
I haven't yelled "Shut up. I don't pronounce that word in English that way and your explanation makes no sense when you explain vowels to me that way." yet, because thankfully, once the native speakers speak I can hear exactly how it should sound, not an approximation using terminology only known to British folks. |