"TR" in some american accents

"tr" is pronounced as /tr/ in standard American English, irrespective of any regional accents. (I can't recall hearing it pronounced any other way by any American without a speech impediment, but I haven't visited every city in the U.S.).

I don't know if some of you realize this or not, but it is very hard to analyze your own accent. For someone, who speaks the dialect in question, to say, 'No, we don't do that' is just a bit rediculous. Would you ever have realized that you say 'liddle' instead of 'little' if no one had brought this to your attention, I don't think so.

<<"tr" is pronounced as /tr/ in standard American English, irrespective of any regional accents. (I can't recall hearing it pronounced any other way by any American without a speech impediment, but I haven't visited every city in the U.S.). \>>

I may not pronounce TR /tSr/, but there are millions Americans with no speech impediment who do.

Yes, I had previously realized that I say "liddle."

Millions isn't much out of 300 million native speakers of GAE. It's possible to find some group, somewhere that manifests just about every conceivable variant of pronunciation, but that doesn't make such variants standard or desirable.

Careful Mxsmanic, you're being a dumbass again.

<<desirable>>

No, we must do nothing undesirable, musn't we! You'd have us all become one uniform, conformist mass, speaking *exactly* the same in every conceivable way.

I'd really hate to live in your ideal world.

In the realm of communication, standardization improves precision and efficiency, both desirable goals for anyone who wishes to interact with others. My students all wish to speak a standard English; and that's what I endeavor to teach them.

There is plenty of individual variation among human beings; it is not necessary to manufacture or preserve artificial differences, and often it is in fact a bad idea to do so. Variations in language are generally the result of random influences that corrupt standards, not of any individual creative expression. And in any case, creative expression that impinges upon the standardization of language often becomes expression intelligible only to the person who created it, since the lack of adherence to any widely-observed standard makes it incomprehensible to others.

"Millions isn't much out of 300 million native speakers of GAE. It's possible to find some group, somewhere that manifests just about every conceivable variant of pronunciation, but that doesn't make such variants standard or desirable."

I'm willing to venture that more than just a "few million" do /tr/ --> [tSr] in some form or fashion. There are over 35 million people in California alone, and most everyone I've ever heard here has had some form of /tr/ --> [tSr]. That's at least 10 percent of the US population. The fact that the original poster noticed it in a lot of American movies and TV shows is an indicator of how widespread it is. It is by no means a minor feature in American English, and even if it were, who cares? I couldn't care less whether or not it's "standard or desirable" to you. I'll continue speaking as I grew up speaking and am quite content to do so :)

And by the way, there are 300 million native speakers of American English, but there are not 300 million native speakers of General American English. There's a difference.

There are 300 million speakers of GAE, for all practical purposes. Significant departures from the standard pronunciation are rare.

I don't recall hearing /tS/ in the pronunciation of the many Californians I know. I don't recall ever seeing it transcribed in the speech of other Americans, either. I don't see it transcribed this way in dictionaries. I'll look again.

<<There are 300 million speakers of GAE, for all practical purposes.>>

No there are not. The United States contains numerous regional accents.

<<Significant departures from the standard pronunciation are rare.>>

False. I repeat, the United States contains numerous regional accents.

"I don't know if some of you realize this or not, but it is very hard to analyze your own accent. For someone, who speaks the dialect in question, to say, 'No, we don't do that' is just a bit rediculous."

This is very true. Most people are too familiar with their own accent to objectively analyze it, if that makes sense.

And the number of speakers of GAE is nowhere near 300 million.

Wow, Mxsmanic, you're really digging yourself in deep with this one.

"...standardization improves precision and efficiency, both desirable goals for anyone who wishes to interact with others. My students all wish to speak a standard English; and that's what I endeavor to teach them."

Are you talking about the written language? I sure hope you're not referring to "standardizing" the spoken language, a laughable concept futile in practice, since people mostly speak as they please, even when large academies or prescriptivists would prefer they speak otherwise.

"There is plenty of individual variation among human beings; it is not necessary to manufacture or preserve artificial differences, and often it is in fact a bad idea to do so. Variations in language are generally the result of random influences that corrupt standards, not of any individual creative expression. And in any case, creative expression that impinges upon the standardization of language often becomes expression intelligible only to the person who created it, since the lack of adherence to any widely-observed standard makes it incomprehensible to others."

Differences amongst varying dialects of a language aren't "artificial" and don't "corrupt" anything whatsoever. They also are hardly borne of a desire for "creative expression." I didn't wake up one day deciding to show my "creativity" by doing things like fronting and unrounding my /u/ or merging "cot" with "caught." The differences in my dialect I mostly attained growing up speaking from my parents' and friends' examples. No one decides to start a new language trend, especially with the desire to diverge from any arbitrary and clearly defined artifial "standard" you seem to believe exists.

"There are 300 million speakers of GAE, for all practical purposes. Significant departures from the standard pronunciation are rare."

Haha. GAE is so vague, its only use is in making broad statements (when precision is not required) about some varieties of American English which arguably fall under its umbrella. However, unless you broaden GAE to include nearly every native speaker in America (what about southern English? nonrhotic East-coast varieties? etc) you cannot say there are 300 million speakers of GAE.

"I don't recall hearing /tS/ in the pronunciation of the many Californians I know. I don't recall ever seeing it transcribed in the speech of other Americans, either. I don't see it transcribed this way in dictionaries. I'll look again."

Well, that's funny, because I live here and hear it all the time. Being a Californian with a familiarity with phonetics and phonology I can guarantee you it's extremely common. It's not transcribed that way in dictionaries because dictionaries are largely concerned with phonemic differences, which /ts/ --> [tSr] is not.

On to my final comment....

"Careful Mxsmanic, you're being a dumbass again." --Lazar

I can't say I disagree. :)

Mxsmanic, your understanding of how "standard languages" come to be is completely at odds with the linguistic reality of their actual nature. "Standard languages" are not some ideal form of a language, of which other dialects which people speak are somehow "corrupted" or "divergent" versions. Rather, "standard languages" are generally artificially codified forms, which have little to do with how most people actually speak any given language, and more to do with literary language forms. Few if any people outside of news broadcasts and like truly speak a "standard language" form.

What most people speak is not "divergent" from a standard, but rather it is the "standard" which has artificially selected out various forms which are natively present in various dialects. Often, individual dialects often are not divergent, but rather conservative in nature, actually. Take for example, Low Saxon versus High German, whether they are separate languages or not being irrelevant here. Low Saxon actually preserves much phonology which has changed in High German, and conserves significant amounts of vocabulary which has been replaced in High German. In this way, Low Saxon is not divergent, but rather conservative. Grammatical differences between the two are another matter, as in this department Low Saxon is progressive rather than conservative, as Low Saxon has lost much of the case system and inflection that is present in standard High German.

The real nature of "standard languages" are that they fix written grammar and orthography, providing a homogeneous written language which does not change much no matter what the native dialect of the individual writer happens to be. Outside of the elitist and conformist notions of people who idealize RP or "GAE" or the standard Hochdeutsch of Duden, "standard languages" are not *meant* to be spoken as such. Furthermore, stylistically, the forms which one often uses in writing are often completely inappropriate for everyday speech, lest one want to sound to others like a book. I for one do not speak anywhere close to how I write on here, unless I am trying to be overly formal for the sake of being intentionally forceful or melodramatic.