Maybe not in California, but in many other places (for example NJ), the tensing of /æ/, means that /æ/ is pronounced as /eə/, which is not remarkably far off from /eɪ/. /ɛ/ is also sometime pronounced tensed as well, leading to a large amount of vowel in that same region.Ashtâr Balînestyâr wrote:If anything, I’d expect those three vowels to spread apart. In dialects that have the NCVS, they’re somewhere around [eə ɜ eɪ], and in California they’re approximately [a/eə ɛ eɪ]. That doesn’t seem like the behaviour I’d expect from three vowels about to merge.
Post-Modern English
Re: Post-Modern English
Spoiler:
Re: Post-Modern English
I think it might be better to discuss this as a "Post-Modern American Englishes", since this is where the navel-gazing seems to lie. There are, among others, Australian English, Canadian English, US English, (land island off France) English (each, with its own myriad varieties of English (and English pronunciations), and Indian English. Can we expect these to develop in tandem and monolithically, even with the Internet? Spelling, which everyone loves to bitch about, might hold it together (though there are already Commonwealth, non-Commonwealth spelling divides).
☯ 道可道,非常道
☯ 名可名,非常名
☯ 名可名,非常名
Re: Post-Modern English
I live in New Jersey.
I can't really tell what would happen. My thinking is that /ɔ/ > /oɒ/ or some other odd diphthong, unless the /ɔ ɑ/ merger catches on here too.
I can't really tell what would happen. My thinking is that /ɔ/ > /oɒ/ or some other odd diphthong, unless the /ɔ ɑ/ merger catches on here too.
Re: Post-Modern English
I live in the same area, and in the well-educated areas, I think that merger has already begun to a significant extent.Ælfwine wrote:I live in New Jersey.
I can't really tell what would happen. My thinking is that /ɔ/ > /oɒ/ or some other odd diphthong, unless the /ɔ ɑ/ merger catches on here too.
Spoiler:
Re: Post-Modern English
North or south?qwed117 wrote:I live in the same area, and in the well-educated areas, I think that merger has already begun to a significant extent.Ælfwine wrote:I live in New Jersey.
I can't really tell what would happen. My thinking is that /ɔ/ > /oɒ/ or some other odd diphthong, unless the /ɔ ɑ/ merger catches on here too.
In the north and amongst younger people such as myself there's been a strong amount of dialect leveling. Everyone is rhotic (non-rhoticity is more of a New York thing anyway) and some Californian type creaky voice has caught on. And I agree that the merger seems to have begun, the only time I notice a difference is from people very close or in NYC.
Hear this girl for example.
Re: Post-Modern English
OH! and also something to think about:
tree [tɹ̠̥ʷiː] > chree [tʃʷɹ̠̥ʷiː] > chee [tʃʷiː] or something like that.
tree [tɹ̠̥ʷiː] > chree [tʃʷɹ̠̥ʷiː] > chee [tʃʷiː] or something like that.
Re: Post-Modern English
I don't have dialect.
/ɑ ɔ/ -> /a/ <â>
/ɛ/ -> /e/ <e>
/æ/ -> /ɛ/ <ê>
/ʊ/ -> /o/ <o>
/ʌ/ -> /ɔ/ <ô>
/ɪ/ -> /ɨ/ <î>
/u/ -> /u/ <u>
/i/ -> /i/ <i>
/ə/ -> /ə/ <a> unstressed
/ɪ/ -> /ɪ e/ <i e> unstressed
/ʊ/ -> /ʊ/ <u> unstressed
/oʊ/ -> /o/ <o> unstressed
/k/ -> /c/ <kh>, but new words with /k/ will appear.
/t/ -> /r/ <rr> between vowels. /ts/ elsewhere, but new words with /t/ will appear. <rr> is distinguished from /ɹ/ <r>.
/θ/ -> /f/ between vowels and in the end of a word. /t/ in the beginning.
/h/ -> /x/
Some shifts can be added:
p -> b, b -> v, v -> f, f -> p
f -> x, x -> ʃ, ʃ -> s, s -> θ, θ -> f
Personal pronouns: mi yu him/shi/îts wi yal hem
To be: ez ezants (always used without pronoun), with pronouns: aim mints, yâr yurants, hiz hizants, shiz shizants, îdis înts, wôr wirants, yâlar yalants, der derants. Past: wâs, Infinitive: bi
Possessives: mai yu his/hôr/îts au yâ de
Verbs don't use affixes. They use preceding particles.
present: sa, dzonts (/dzɔnts/)
past: dzî, dzînts
future: ghoiñ (/ɟɔjŋ/), ghoints
perfect: hêv, hevants
past perfect: hêdz, hêdzants
future perfect: wêv, wêvants
Articles: di (singular), du (plural)
/ɑ ɔ/ -> /a/ <â>
/ɛ/ -> /e/ <e>
/æ/ -> /ɛ/ <ê>
/ʊ/ -> /o/ <o>
/ʌ/ -> /ɔ/ <ô>
/ɪ/ -> /ɨ/ <î>
/u/ -> /u/ <u>
/i/ -> /i/ <i>
/ə/ -> /ə/ <a> unstressed
/ɪ/ -> /ɪ e/ <i e> unstressed
/ʊ/ -> /ʊ/ <u> unstressed
/oʊ/ -> /o/ <o> unstressed
/k/ -> /c/ <kh>, but new words with /k/ will appear.
/t/ -> /r/ <rr> between vowels. /ts/ elsewhere, but new words with /t/ will appear. <rr> is distinguished from /ɹ/ <r>.
/θ/ -> /f/ between vowels and in the end of a word. /t/ in the beginning.
/h/ -> /x/
Some shifts can be added:
p -> b, b -> v, v -> f, f -> p
f -> x, x -> ʃ, ʃ -> s, s -> θ, θ -> f
Personal pronouns: mi yu him/shi/îts wi yal hem
To be: ez ezants (always used without pronoun), with pronouns: aim mints, yâr yurants, hiz hizants, shiz shizants, îdis înts, wôr wirants, yâlar yalants, der derants. Past: wâs, Infinitive: bi
Possessives: mai yu his/hôr/îts au yâ de
Verbs don't use affixes. They use preceding particles.
present: sa, dzonts (/dzɔnts/)
past: dzî, dzînts
future: ghoiñ (/ɟɔjŋ/), ghoints
perfect: hêv, hevants
past perfect: hêdz, hêdzants
future perfect: wêv, wêvants
Articles: di (singular), du (plural)
English is not my native language. Sorry for any mistakes or lack of knowledge when I discuss this language.
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Re: Post-Modern English
I saw this thread and thought I might post a Future English I've been working on as well, just in case it seems interesting. This descendant, called Ñàkang, is intended to be spoken around 3000 AD, in the future US and Canada, and is on the cusp between highly analytic and agglutinating~polysynthetic. It is somewhat inspired by Mandarin Chinese. It has Serial Verb Constructions, Noun Incorporation, and a 4-tone system. I can't give much more than that because the grammar is not completely finished, but the phonology and sound changes are, so I will post those.
To 2100
The stuff here is pretty bog standard stuff, mostly iterations of changes happening now. Some vowel mergers before /r/, production of syllabic consonants, and a slight implementation of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. The morpheme -ing at this time has also become a syllabic nasal in most casual speech.
To 2200
Not much happens here, some coda simplification and allophonic changes of some vowels.
To 2300
Some more coda simplification and the beginnings of a major change in the vowel inventory.
To 2400
This is one of the changes I'm most proud of and think is very interesting. This shift called the Great Vowel Breaking, is a major reorganization of the vowel inventory. Coda obstruents end up voicing, while vowels shift to compensate for the large amount of homonyms that would be produced. Vowels lengthen and lax before former voiced obstruents, and tense and shorten before former unvoiced obstruents, tense before coda non /r/ sonorants (a change that is happening in Modern English before /l/ that I generalized to nasals as well), and have an extension of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift in open syllables. Rhotacized vowels are also lost.
To 2500
Many of these changes are consequences of the Great Vowel Breaking, and the massive amount of diphthongs produced are leveled to sequences of a vowel and approximant. Allophonic coda glottal stops produced from T-glottalization are also dropped, and dental fricatives are finally lost. Sequences of some consonants and /j/ also palatalize, producing alveolo-palatal affricates and fricatives, contrasting with the post alveolar equivalents. These may shift to retroflex to compensate.
To 2600
Coda /l/ becomes the approximant /w/, and much more coda simplification. Nasalized vowels also become phonemic and syllabic consonants finally disappear.
To 2700
The initial clusters /sp/, /st/, and /sk/, become the affricate /ts/, and coda stops become a coda glottal stop.
To 2800
We see the beginning of tonogenesis from coda fricatives and initial voiced consonants. A voiced initial consonant with a final fricative produces a low falling tone. The initial clusters of a consonant and /l/ also become lateral affricates, while sequences of a fricative and /l/ become an unvoiced lateral fricative. Likewise happens to the sequences /sm/ and /sn/, which eventually merge with their voiced equivalents, but remain distinct due to the fact that they do not produce low tone.
To 2900
Voicing distinctions in consonants are replaced by an aspiration distinction, as in Germanic languages like Icelandic. The vowel system is also reorganized into a 6 vowel system with contrastive nasalization, that is, /i y u e o a/.
To 3000
Final sequences of Consonants and various approximants produce phonemic uvular stops, along with some labialized stops.
There is also a shift in the pronunciation of the tones, the low-falling tone becomes a high falling, while the high falling becomes a rising-falling tone. Nasal vowels also lower.
Final Phonology
/p t ts ʈʂ tɕ tɬ k kʷ q qʷ ʔ/ <b d z zh j g gw ġ ġw '/
/pʰ tʰ tsʰ ʈʂʰ tɕʰ tɬʰ kʰ kʷʰ qʰ qʷʰ/ <p t ts tsh c k kw q qw/
/s ʂ ɕ ɬ x xʷ/ <s lh sh ṡ x xw/
/m n ɲ ŋ ŋʷ / /m n ñ ng ngw/
/(m̥) (n̥)/ <mh nh>
/l ɾ ɻ j ʎ w ɥ ʁ/ <l ṙ z y ll w ÿ r>
/i y u/ <i ü u>
/e ẽ ø̃ ø o õ/ <e en ö ön o on>
/ɑ ɑ̃/ <a an>
/˥ ˨ ˥˨ ˨˥˨/
a à ǎ â
CV(T)(R)(ʔ)
C=any consonant
V=any vowel
T=any tone
R=/w/, /j/, /ɥ/, or /ʁ/
To finish this (much longer than I expected) post off, I'll give an example sentence showcasing as much of the grammar as I can off.
aɪ həv wɛnt ði ə stɔr həv gɛt loʊf brɛd, twɛlv ˈdʌzən ɛg, ənd ə ˈpitsə, ðɛn kʌm hoʊm.
>
'A ràw wìn dì 'a xwà ràw gù lû ġwèrʔ kwö dòràn 'erʔ 'anʔ 'a pisa tìn kan rùn
[ɑʁɑ̀wʔwį̀ tìʔɑxʷɑ̀ ʁɑ̀wkù lù̂qʷèʁʔ kʷʰø tòʁɑ̨̀ʔeʁʔ ɑ̨ʔɑpʰisɑ tį̀kʰɑ̨ ʁų̀]
{1.sg=PST.PERF=go.PST.PRF DEF=CLASS=store PST.PERF=recieve CLASS=bread, twelve CLASS=egg, CONJ=CLASS=cake, CONJ=come house}
"I went to the store and bought a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs, and a cake, and then I came home."
To 2100
Spoiler:
To 2200
Spoiler:
To 2300
Spoiler:
To 2400
Spoiler:
To 2500
Spoiler:
To 2600
Spoiler:
To 2700
Spoiler:
To 2800
Spoiler:
To 2900
Spoiler:
To 3000
Spoiler:
There is also a shift in the pronunciation of the tones, the low-falling tone becomes a high falling, while the high falling becomes a rising-falling tone. Nasal vowels also lower.
Final Phonology
/p t ts ʈʂ tɕ tɬ k kʷ q qʷ ʔ/ <b d z zh j g gw ġ ġw '/
/pʰ tʰ tsʰ ʈʂʰ tɕʰ tɬʰ kʰ kʷʰ qʰ qʷʰ/ <p t ts tsh c k kw q qw/
/s ʂ ɕ ɬ x xʷ/ <s lh sh ṡ x xw/
/m n ɲ ŋ ŋʷ / /m n ñ ng ngw/
/(m̥) (n̥)/ <mh nh>
/l ɾ ɻ j ʎ w ɥ ʁ/ <l ṙ z y ll w ÿ r>
/i y u/ <i ü u>
/e ẽ ø̃ ø o õ/ <e en ö ön o on>
/ɑ ɑ̃/ <a an>
/˥ ˨ ˥˨ ˨˥˨/
a à ǎ â
CV(T)(R)(ʔ)
C=any consonant
V=any vowel
T=any tone
R=/w/, /j/, /ɥ/, or /ʁ/
To finish this (much longer than I expected) post off, I'll give an example sentence showcasing as much of the grammar as I can off.
aɪ həv wɛnt ði ə stɔr həv gɛt loʊf brɛd, twɛlv ˈdʌzən ɛg, ənd ə ˈpitsə, ðɛn kʌm hoʊm.
>
'A ràw wìn dì 'a xwà ràw gù lû ġwèrʔ kwö dòràn 'erʔ 'anʔ 'a pisa tìn kan rùn
[ɑʁɑ̀wʔwį̀ tìʔɑxʷɑ̀ ʁɑ̀wkù lù̂qʷèʁʔ kʷʰø tòʁɑ̨̀ʔeʁʔ ɑ̨ʔɑpʰisɑ tį̀kʰɑ̨ ʁų̀]
{1.sg=PST.PERF=go.PST.PRF DEF=CLASS=store PST.PERF=recieve CLASS=bread, twelve CLASS=egg, CONJ=CLASS=cake, CONJ=come house}
"I went to the store and bought a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs, and a cake, and then I came home."
Re: Post-Modern English
Wonder if I glanced over this, but surprised if no one has mentioned:
/ə/ could be deleted in many unstressed positions. This is happening right now, even though maybe lexically or restricted to just a few environments.
I live in the US. Plenty of people say "semester" as if "smester", "correct" as if "kreckt", and "Japanese" "Japan" as if "Japnese" "Jpan".
Once unstressed schwa disappears from English, it won't be too long before English (hopefully) reorganizes itself in some (major?) ways to regularize and accommodate for the change.
In fact, Wikipedia suggests that the Baltimore dialect already has this change. It gives examples like "Annapolis = Naplis, cigarette = cigrette, company = compny".
/ə/ could be deleted in many unstressed positions. This is happening right now, even though maybe lexically or restricted to just a few environments.
I live in the US. Plenty of people say "semester" as if "smester", "correct" as if "kreckt", and "Japanese" "Japan" as if "Japnese" "Jpan".
Once unstressed schwa disappears from English, it won't be too long before English (hopefully) reorganizes itself in some (major?) ways to regularize and accommodate for the change.
In fact, Wikipedia suggests that the Baltimore dialect already has this change. It gives examples like "Annapolis = Naplis, cigarette = cigrette, company = compny".
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Re: Post-Modern English
The problem is that English has relatively productive stress changing morphology. This means that you would get crazy patterns like Japnese vs. Jpan, where the both vowels are unpredictable phonologically, yet they never occur together. And you would get them productively
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
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Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics
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Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics
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Re: Post-Modern English
I assume that’s likely to evolve into an Arabesque system of nonconcatenative morphology, at least at an initial stage.
[ˈaʃt̪əɹ ˈbalɨˌnɛsʲtʲəɹ]
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Re: Post-Modern English
I don't know but it'll be vile.
Re: Post-Modern English
Welcome, Dingleberry.
And might I say, that's a brave moniker you've got.
You willnaught choose another, I take it?
And might I say, that's a brave moniker you've got.
You willnaught choose another, I take it?
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Re: Post-Modern English
It's my last name. Pronounced Dinglebry.
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Re: Post-Modern English
With my dialect I can definitely see tonogenesis or at least wierd vowel phonation. For examply, I pronounce ⟨cat⟩ roughly as [kʰæʔ͡t], sometimes completely solely with a glottal component. Syllable final ⟨l⟩s are also very retracted, almost pharyngealized—I wouldn't be surprised if they disappeared entirely leaving only a pharyngeal phonation. Similarly with ⟨r⟩s, although that's a bit harder for me to tell.
Re: Post-Modern English
I suspect trying to work out a future English from standard varieties (GA or, occasionally, RP) is going to fail to give accurate predictions (although, obviously they're entirely possible ones). We know modern English derives primarily from Anglian varieties of Old English rather than the standard West Saxon and likewise I've heard that the Romance languages do not properly descend from classical Latin and are more of a set of niece-languages than daughter languages so it seems to me that we'd probably see whatever future English becomes dominant descending from relatively divergent varieties (e.g. Appalachian, Singlish, Indian English, or Scots).
I suspect the main reason for this is that any historical change drastic enough to lead to the abandonment of a previous standard (rather than simply adjusting the existing one) is likely to be dramatic enough to destabilise the major urban centres where the standard varieties are spoken but are less likely to affect the rural areas where more divergent (although often more conservative) varieties are spoken.
I suspect the main reason for this is that any historical change drastic enough to lead to the abandonment of a previous standard (rather than simply adjusting the existing one) is likely to be dramatic enough to destabilise the major urban centres where the standard varieties are spoken but are less likely to affect the rural areas where more divergent (although often more conservative) varieties are spoken.
My pronouns are they/them/their
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
Re: Post-Modern English
I'd say it's a bit more complicated than that. Major historical changes did cause these standards to lose ground, yes (although Classical Latin wasn't completely abandoned - and indeed, still hasn't been!), but the important thing is that they hadn't really been spoken by that many people in the first place. Classical Latin especially was very much a literary register; actually spoken Latin had originally been quite close to it, certainly, but by the time the West Roman empire collapsed, it had been diverging for centuries. Obviously, the daughter languages developed from the language as it was actually spoken.esoanem wrote:I suspect trying to work out a future English from standard varieties (GA or, occasionally, RP) is going to fail to give accurate predictions (although, obviously they're entirely possible ones). We know modern English derives primarily from Anglian varieties of Old English rather than the standard West Saxon and likewise I've heard that the Romance languages do not properly descend from classical Latin and are more of a set of niece-languages than daughter languages so it seems to me that we'd probably see whatever future English becomes dominant descending from relatively divergent varieties (e.g. Appalachian, Singlish, Indian English, or Scots).
I suspect the main reason for this is that any historical change drastic enough to lead to the abandonment of a previous standard (rather than simply adjusting the existing one) is likely to be dramatic enough to destabilise the major urban centres where the standard varieties are spoken but are less likely to affect the rural areas where more divergent (although often more conservative) varieties are spoken.
Likewise, West Saxon was only ever spoken in Wessex (and even there, the standard was only used by a small literate elite; common people would have spoken a different dialect in pretty much every village), so while it does have direct descendants, those are largely confined to the area where it was originally spoken. There's also the fact that the area has been largely rural, which has led to social stigmatization of the dialect, which in turn has caused people to abandon its features in favor of more standard ones. In effect, it's been under such heavy influence from standard English that it's been converging rather than diverging.
Which brings us to another point, namely that the new standards which eventually emerged did not, by and large, come from rural dialects; they arose in new power centers such as London and Paris. Also, it should be noted that this was an extremely long process, with the new standards taking several centuries to become fully established. Partially this might be because medieval people just didn't really seem to value having a standard written form for the vernacular that much, which in turn might be because most formal writing would've been done in Latin anyway. The vernacular was for informal registers, where writing in one's own dialect and even getting a bit creative with the spelling (to the point where you could spell the same word differently if it occurred twice in the same sentence) was completely acceptable.
Essentially, I'm not sure you can really draw a parallel between these two and modern English. The world has changed too much from the days you had to hand your tweets to the only literate man in town and have him ride around on a horse yelling them at people. We'd need an example from closer to the modern era, but the problem might be that our cultural evolution has been speeding up much faster than the time scales significant language change requires. For any developments that have started since about the beginning of the industrial revolution, it's just too early to say that much.
Re: Post-Modern English
Does anyone else think we might eventually see voicing of voiceless fricatives (aside from /h/) at the beginnings of words?
Re: Post-Modern English
I know this is a pretty old post, but anyway, I had to reply simply because I have to convince my mum over and over again that the intervocalic <tt> and <dd> in American English are pretty much identical to a common pronunciation of Finnish intervocalic /r/ (and /d/, but I've never understood why that's even considered a thing; in my opinion it'd make more sense to say that /d/ is simply replaced by /r/ sometimes). The first time I convinced her was when we were watching some American film on TV where a guy saidSalmoneus wrote: ↑25 May 2017 17:36The alveolar flap! Americans (and to a lesser extent other English speakers) don't think of it as a rhotic, but it's pretty much the prototypical rhotic. And indeed, you sometimes see people here using <r> when trying to write out an American accent, although the fact that we know it's "really" <t> or <d> does often prevent people from realising what they're hearing.
A few sound changes I'd like to see happen in American English, just for fun:
[ɻʷˤ] > no change (because let's be honest, this is one of the most ridiculous sounds ever)
[ɚ əɹ ɜɹ] > [ɻ̩ʷˤː]
[ɻ̩ʷˤːV] > [ɻ̩ʷˤː]
[ɾ] > [ɽˤ]
[pʰɹ fɹ] > [r̼]
[bɹ vɹ] > [ʙ]
[nd] > [ɳ]
word-initial [pʰ] > [f]
word-medial [pʰ] > [ʙ]
word-final [pʰ] > [(Vː)ɸ]
word-initial [b] > [ɓ]
word-medial [b] > [ʙ]
word-final [b] > [(V̆)p]
word-initial [tʰ] > [ʈ͡ɻ̝̊]
word-medial [tʰ] > [ɽˤ]
word-final [tʰ] > [(Vː)ʔ̚]
word-initial [d] > [ᶑ]
word-medial [d] > [ɽˤ]
word-final [d] > [(Vː)ɻ]
word-initial [kʰ] > [χ~ħ~h]
word-medial [kʰ] > [ʡʰ]
word-final [kʰ] > [ʔ̚]
word-initial [g] > [ɠ]
word-medial [g] > [ɣ]
word-final [g] > [(V̆)ʔ̚]
word-initial [ð] > [ɻʷˤ]
word-medial [ð] > [ɗ]
word-final [ð] > [ɻʷˤ]
[a æ ɑ ʌ ɛ e] > [æ]
[ɪ i] > [ɨ]
[iː] > [i]
Word-final vowels are dropped or reduced to [ə̆~ə̥̆], but the consonants preceding them are still treated as medial.
Lengthened long vowels would become creaky voiced, eg. bad [ɓæ̰ːɻ].
Thus, America would be standardised as [mɻ̩ʷˤːʡʰə̥̆], pat and fat would become homophones as [fæːʔ̚], cat would be [hæːʔ̚], brother would be [ʙæɗɻ̩ʷˤː], friend would be [r̼̊æɳ], etc.
EDIT: I realised the word couldn't have been "pretty", since Americans pronounce that as if it was "purdy"... well, it was some word with <tt> in it.
EDIT AGAIN: replaced the [r] with [ɹ], since there's no way a trilled R would exist in American English... I didn't mean that, of course, but whatever rhotic. But it's better to replace it with [ɹ] before anyone points out the obvious.