User talk:208.104.45.20

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Well, let's say that after so many years of TESOL I kind of learned how to work my way across the vowel trapezoid, as well as how to "code-switch" between different accents. The accent I outlined is the one I use when I think to myself :) and it's vaguely suggestive of some of the places I grew up in, mostly Western New England, but also South Jersey. The nucleus of MOUTH is fronted in much of North America (Mid-Atlantic, Midland, South, and--at least before /n/--Canada), as well as in Southern England (in non-RP accents) and the Southern Hemisphere. Your linguistic knowledge is most definitely not so "limited"--if you consider that most people who don't merge cot and caught don't even know that one half of the continent pronounces them alike, and vice versa. It's funny that you mentioned the distinction between [ɐ] and [a]; it used to puzzle me too--until I met a girl from New Zealand when I was in Europe. I asked her about the difference between Australian and New Zealand English. To my surprise, the first thing she mentioned was not the famous "fush-and-chups" shibboleth; she started out by saying, "In New Zealand we say caah and in Australia, they say caah! Can you hear the difference?" Jack(Lumber) 19:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

She sounded more observant than most people. So, in New Zealand English, card would have the same vowel quality as cud ([ɐ]), except the latter would be shorter. I think the same is true for Australian English, right? Except the vowel quality in Australian English is different. I can imitate [a] much better than I can [ɐ]. In Boston, car would be more like the New Zealand one ([ä]), right? 208.104.45.20 (talk) 19:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Yep. Indeed, most people find [ä] easy to produce; after all, it's a staple of very many spoken languages. On the other hand, very few (if any) languages have [ä] and [ɐ] as separate phonemes, although they may be found as allophones of the same phoneme. Jack(Lumber) 21:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)