Air-uh-zoh-nuh for Arizona

How do you pronounce the word "Arizona"? For me it's /'Er.I."zou.n@/ or /'Er.@."zou.n@/ but I hear lots of easterners say /{rIzoun@/.

I have /Er-/ for all /{r-/, which means I never have /{/ before /r/. How many of you have this merger?

I pronounce it air-uh-zoh-nuh. Strange, Colorado, Florida, Missouri and Oregon are the states most people seem to pronounce differently. I remember hearing several different pronunciations on television for 'Florida': Flor-ih-duh, Flar-ih-duh , Flooer-ih-duh, Fluh-ruh-duh during the controversy surrounding the presidential election vote recount of the year 2000.

Brennus,
Yeah I hear lots of different pronunciationsfor these state names.

For me,
Colorado /'k_hA:l@."rA:doU/
Florida /"flO:rI4@/
Oregon /"O:rIg@n/
Missouri /mI"zu:ri/

For me:

Arizona [Er\I"zo_cn@]
Colorado [k_hA5@"r\{:4o_c(U)] or [k_hA5@"r\A:4o_c(U)]
Florida ["flOr\I4@]
Oregon ["Or\IgIn]
Missouri [mI"z3`i]

I pronounce those states:

Arizona [{r\@"zoUn@]
Colorado [kQl@"r\A4oU]
Florida ["flQr\@4@]
Oregon ["Or\@gQn]
Missouri [m@"z3`i]

My pronunciation of "Arizona" shows that I'm from the Northeast since I make the Mary-merry-marry distinction.

My pronunciation of "Florida" shows a) that I'm from the Northeast, because the first syllable doesn't use [O], and b) specifically that I'm from New England, rather than from New York, because the first syllable uses [Q] rather than [A].

Hehe, Lazar, you're definitely from the Northeast :) And, even if I didn't hear the other words I'd know from "Oregon" since no one on the West Coast pronounces the "-on" in "Oregon" to rhyme with "Jon." It's either unstressed [@n] or more likely [In]. Of course I'm not Oregonian but apparently a lot of Oregonians don't like hearing their state being pronounced to rhyme with "Jon" :)

No clue what it is in X-Sampa (or whatever it is you are using).

Native Floridian from Miami:

Arizona: Ahr-rih-zoh-nah
Florida: Flor-rih-duh (literally, the first syllable sounds like "floor")
Oregon: Or-reh-GON or Or-re-ghin
Missouri: Miz-ur-ree

Damn, I really need to learn that sound system...

Arizona - [{rIzoun@]
Florida - flahr-duh
Oregon - ahr-uh-gin
Colorado - cahl-uh-rahd-o
Missouri - miz-ur-ee

-- from Phila. you can definitely tell I'm from the northeast u.s.

<<Damn, I really need to learn that sound system...>>

Here's the Wikipedia article on X-SAMPA, which is widely used on the internet as a regular-font substitute (which maps pretty much one to one) with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA

If you're unfamiliar with IPA, here's the article for it as applies to English:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_for_English

I also made up my own little tutorial on the basics of IPA and X-SAMPA on a thread I started at langcafé. Anyone is welcome to check that out as well:

http://www.langcafe.net/viewtopic.php?t=278

Have fun! And if you have any questions always feel free to ask--there are plenty of people here and at langcafé who are familiar with IPA and X-SAMPA and would love to help someone out who has questions :)