Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 August 26

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August 26

"Short a" in American English

I am no native speaker of English and thus have a question about the pronunciation of the short a (referred to as /æ/).

In British English, it does sound quite like a front-open [æˑ], opposed to the short e (/e/ or /ɛ/) which seems to be an front-mid vowel (between [e] and [ɛ]). So there is a good quality difference between short a and short e. Bed and bad cannot be confused.

But in American English, the short a seems to be more closed, reaching (in my ears) the same quality as the short e. What I hear is: bed [bɛd] and bad [bɛːd]. I don't hear any quality difference, only length difference.

But in literature there is no evidence about this 'phenomene'. So, am I right that Americans pronounce their short a closer, or are my ears just fooling me?--88.74.12.52 (talk) 15:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The short "a" in American English can indeed be hard to grasp for someone not familiar with it. To those of us in the midwest, certainly, "bad" and "bed" are distinctly different, but to non-native speakers it could be very subtle. The "a" can become even broader in parts of the midwest, where a word like "sand" comes out more like "see-and" (run-together, though, not separate syllables - more of a dipthong). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots

RP vowels

California vowels

Going with two vowel charts that we have at Wikipedia, (see right), it seems that the quality differences between these two vowels in British English (RP) and a popular dialect in movies (California English) is roughly the same, though the phonetic values differ.

RP short E (the vowel of bed) is a mid front unrounded vowel, similar to cardinal [ɛ], but actually halfway between this vowel and cardinal [e]. RP short a is right about at cardinal [æ].

California short E is a lot closer to the open-mid value of cardinal [ɛ] and its short a is also lowered into cardinal [a] territory (though, keep in mind that a number of languages that with /a/ have a more central vowel).

I'm not sure what your native language is, but it could be that your ear is cued to hear differences between close-mid and open-mid front vowels or but not between open-mid and open or near-open front vowels. Thus, anything in the close-mid or mid range you would classify as [e] and anything more open than this you would classify as [ɛ].

But then you say that you can tell the difference between [ɛ] and [æ], so I could be way off. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Somehow, I'm reminded of Mr. Mantalini: "The two countesses had no outlines at all, and the dowager's was a demd outline." Deor (talk) 16:36, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

As Baseball Bugs hints, the situation is complicated by vowel breaking, or diphthongization, of these vowels in several American dialects. California is one of the regions least subject to the breaking or diphthongization of these vowels. Our article Vowel breaking presents a common breaking pattern in Southern U.S. dialects. Our article on the Northern cities vowel shift describes another common breaking pattern that extends beyond the Inland Northern American English referenced in this article to coastal dialects in the Northeastern United States. Marco polo (talk) 18:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

(Shifting back to the left) Asker here, my mother tongue is German. So I am used to distinguish between [e], [ɛ] and [ä]. It also seems to my that other Germans do pronounce the /æ/ like [ɛ(ː)], maybe due to American films, games and broadcasting (so, bet, bed, bat, bad will be homophones when spoken by an average German). When someone of my friends hears some BBC he'll laugh about that the Englishmen pronounce it like an [a]. So it seems that it might have to do something with our native language. But I don't fully understand it. --88.74.13.174 (talk) 13:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I lived in Germany for a while, and I know that German speakers have difficulty with [æ]. If you want to perfect this vowel, I recommend choosing a variety of English that you would like to emulate. Probably this should be a standard variety such as Received Pronunciation or General American. Then find recorded examples of speakers of one of these varieties pronouncing [æ] and other vowels that are hard for you to distinguish from it. Then practice by repeating the recorded pronunciations yourself. Marco polo (talk) 15:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)