“Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don’t
you find?” says Auntie Josephine in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events: The
Wide Window. Grammar may not be exactly what you consider a joy. I
certainly do not. But I can’t help loving phonetics and phonology with all my
heart. Call me a freak.
I moved to
Manchester around 10 months ago. My oral comprehension has never been very good
- not even in my mother tongue -, so getting used to the Mancunian accent took
me a while. Once I got used to it… or sort of, I started mentally making
patterns of this accent’s features that were unusual to me. I’m sure there are
lots of studies on the Mancunian accent, but here’s a list of just a few of the
features I’ve personally noticed:
Intrusive /r/
10 years
ago I was in my 2nd year in university and studied English phonetics
and phonology for the first time. In those lessons I heard about the phonetic
phenomena called linking /r/ and epenthetic or intrusive /r/. Let me explain what these are:
In RP (RP
is considered the standard variety of British English; also called the Queen’s
English or BBC English), the final /r/ in words ending in vowel + /r/ is not
pronounced.
e.g.: “car” /kɑ:/
“waiter” /’weɪtə/
“fire” /’faɪə/
However, if
these words are followed by a word beginning with a vowel, this /r/ that had
disappeared is now pronounced. This is called linking /r/.
e.g.: “car and bike” /’kɑrən’baɪk/
Notice that
this linking /r/ only happens between vowels. A development of this rule is the
so called epenthetic or intrusive /r/. This intrusive /r/ will appear between
vowels even in cases where the first word does not have any /r/ in it.
e.g. “law” /lɔ:/ -- “law of a country” /’lɔrəvə’kaʊntrɪ/
“draw” /drɔ:/ -- “draw a map” /’drɔrə’mæp/
Being the
Mancunian accent a British one and thus a non-rhotic one, I expected to hear this
linking /r/ all the time. And I did. But what I did not know is that I was
going to hear the intrusive /r/ as well… even in the middle of words (which
means that this rule applies not only to word endings but to any open syllabic codas)
and in isolated words (which… is absolutely crazy)!!!
e.g.: “drawing” -- RP /’drɔ:wɪŋ/ vs Manchester /’drɔ:rɪŋ/
“idea” -- RP /ʌɪ’di:ə/ vs Manchester /ʌɪ’di:ər/
Final velar nasal /ŋ/
I was an
EFL teacher in Spain for some years and, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed,
for me, right pronunciation has always been a matter of concern. One of the
hardest things for Spanish students is correctly pronouncing the final velar
nasal, as they assume the <g> must be pronounced. They either add a velar
plosive (usually a voiceless one as in Spanish there is no final voiced velar
plosive) or they change the velar nasal for an alveolar nasal.
e.g.: “eating” RP
/’i:tɪŋ/
Spanish
students Option 1: /’itiŋk/
Option 2: /’itin/
But then I
arrived to Manchester and my world was turn upside down:
RP <ng> [ŋ] / __#
Manchester <ng> [g˳] /__ #
So to make
Spanish students happy, here the <g> is pronounced and actually, it’s
slightly devoiced. “Eating” would be pronounced as /’i:tɪŋg˳/
/u:/ fronting
I’ve
noticed that in some words with what in RP would be the /u:/ sound, here is
pronounced /y:/. It’s like a 21st century Vowel Umlaut. I’ve heard
it in final position in monosyllabic words (e.g.: “poo” - RP /pu:/ vs Manchester /py:/) but
I’m still trying to figure out if this is the only condition in which this
fronting occurs.
Glottal fricative dropping
For some
reason, in most cases, Mancunians drop the glottal fricative when it’s at the
beginning of a syllable, and especially if this syllable is unstressed.
RP [h] vs Manchester Ø / #__Vͯ
e.g.: “tell him” [‘telɪm]
When I
think of how the names of certain places in England are pronounced, I assume the
glottal fricative dropping is an extended feature.
e.g.: “Buckingham” /’bʌkɪŋəm/
“Dunham” /’dʊnəm/
“Birmingham” /’bɜ:mɪŋəm/
I realise these
3 examples I’ve given contain the same ending ( <-ham> ) which derives
from the Anglo-Saxon word “ham” meaning "settlement", so maybe my theory that the
glottal fricative dropping is a widespread feature is completely wrong.
Last but
not least, I’d like to mention one of my favourite cases. It’s a mix of the
first and the fourth features listed: intrusive /r/ and glottal fricative
dropping.
It’s the
way the phrase “saw her” is pronounced. The /h/ in “her” disappears, which
results in a diphthong. This diphthong is then broken by introducing /r/.
RP [‘sɔ:hə]
Manchester [‘sɔ:ɽə]
Absolutely lovely, don’t you find?
Zara this blog is awesome :O you know more about the English language and grammar than I do! And I'm engl- wait, no I'm mancunian...BIG difference :P just remember, I know you hate complements so I'll just say you're awesome
ReplyDeleteThis is fascinating stuff Zara. Cheers. Dave W.
ReplyDelete