Subject: british vs . american < a > ( s

griffin bacal internet mail direct inquiries to postmaster @ gbinc . com 8 / 7 / 97 2 : 36 pm british vs . american < a > ( summary ) i received a number of very helpful and insightful replies in response to my question about differences in british & american pronunciations of < a > ( / ae / vs . / a / in foreign and loan words such as france , pasta , nicaragua , et al . ) and thought it might be nice to pass them on to the list . typically , there 's a nice mix of agreement & disagreement among the responses , esp . on the issue of whether americans are more " loyal " to the source languages than britons are . there are also some observations on british changes to native stress patterns ( which i myself noticed while dining out with british colleagues who order " creme bru - lee " for dessert . . . ) . one question that no one 's answered yet , though : in the british english pronunciation of " jacques chirac " , why does " jacques " have something like / a / when " chirac " has / ae / ? ( the non - french stress on the first syllable of " chirac " has been explained to me already ! ) anyway , here are the responses i received . thanks again to all . david weiss david _ weiss @ gbinc . com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 1 ) i ' ve noticed also that the british are more likely to anglicize , in the sense of using english pronunciations , especially of vowels . perhaps this habit comes from their lengthy use of latin , as a learned language . in the middle ages , i believe it was common to adapt latin to the language of the host country . for example , long a in latin was generally said as a post vowel shift / e : / or / ej / in england , as it still is . whereas in north america we generally use the classical pronunciation , with the low vowel . the other instance you cite / frans / vs . / fraens / , is a more recent development in british speech , in which / ae / lowered to / a : / before certain consonants , although not invariably . for example , in laugh , half , castle , fasten , plant , aunt the lower vowel prevails in standard british english . at least this is what i seem to have noticed . how about you ? is it possible that pasta was borrowed into british english after the vowel lowering took place ? that might explain the lack of lowering in this instance . also , the lowering does not seem to be entirely phonologically conditioned , e . g . , ant / aent / vs . aunt / a : nt / . " pants " may not be british , but i do n't believe this vowel is lowered , either : possibly a new borrowing from american english ? dr . ronald cosper ronald . cosper @ stmarys . ca - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 2 ) david , just a quick response to your article in the linguist list . i ' m not british or american , but have had a fair amount of exposure to both accents of english . it seems to me that the situation is n't very conclusive . many british speakers believe that they retain the right to ' naturalise ' or ' anglicise ' foreign words names , but then so do americans . the problems is that they have done this differently . if we look at more recent french borrowings , the british have generally naturalised them in terms of their stress pattern ( therefore : garage , ballet , beret , buffet , massage , to follow the pattern of older borrowings like village , damage ) , whereas americans keep it more foreign sounding by stressing the second syllable . in some cases , in the uk , ' garage ' can rhyme with ' carriage ' , and ' buffet ' with ' ( little miss ) muffet ' . on the other hand , older brits still reserve the right to pronounce ' trait ' with the final < t > silent , as in french , unlike americans ; and as you mentioned , there 's ' france ' ( and ' chance ' , 'd ance ' ) . however , if we think of non - european names like iran or pakistan , one stereotype of american pronunciation is eye - ran and pack-is - stan . moving on to your / a : / v . / ae / distinction that you mentioned , i think some of it will have to do with the fact that in american the < a > in < man > is almost universally pronounced / ae / , with perhaps the exception of southerners . in the uk , on the other hand , it is / ae / mainly in the south . when you move to northern england , or wales or to scotland , the sound is / a / , i . e . close to the european sounds as in german ' mann ' . ( and here , the / a : / in ' path ' or ' car ' is also close to [ a ] . ) you also get this over in northern ireland and the republic . therefore , a southern english speaker would be used to ' naturalising ' an item said using a scots , northern , etc . accent ( thus [ man ] - - > [ maen ] ) , and would therefore apply the same ' rule ' to european names . peter tan elltankw @ nus . sg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 3 ) hi , i am writing back to you off net because i have nothing really substantive to add to your observation , except to say it is n't just names - listen to the british pronunciation of ' lasagna ' or ' pasta ' as well with [ ae ] . but what i wanted to say is that i named the process " mangle " as a new phonological rule of [ a ] > [ ae ] / [ + foreign ] , or even , more widely , take any foreign word and pronounce it somehow other than the way those foreigners would pronounce it ( you see why i am not replying to the whole net : - ) ) . i noticed it in the speech of my father-in - law , from leeds , whom i love dearly and who insists on saying [ paest @ ] for ' pasta ' . i would never correct him , but i ' ve been aware of it since , and six months of living in britain a couple of years ago only confirmed the observation you have noted as well . i ' m looking forward to seeing what other , more serious , responses look like . margaret e . winters mew1 @ siu . edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 4 ) the general rule in british english is to make stressed / a / in foreign words into / ae / , as we have in the u . s . in ' piano ' . but ' france ' does n't follow the pattern , because it was anglicized so long ago , and follows another general pattern of south english dialects that is only a couple of centuries old at most : turn historical short a ( low front / ae / ) into / a : / before ( certain ? ) fricatives , with or without a nasal in between . hence ' bath ' , ' castle ' , ' fast ' , ' lance ' , ' last ' , ' france ' , etc . all have / a : / in the south of england . northerners kept the / ae / pronunciation , as did americans outside the boston area . the word ' bath ' is a good shibboleth for northerners vs . southerners in england . i think i recall reading in some history-of - english text that / ae / - - > / a : / is not a cut and dried rule ( or an exceptionless change - - however you want to think of it ) . and i can't recall exactly how the rule was stated - - perhaps the fricative had to be in a cluster . note that words ending in - ash did not undergo the change . and i ' m not sure how the lengthening of / a / before - r and - l relates to this change - - ' arse ' and ' half ' got / a : / and and then lost their liquids , in both north and south england , but not in america outside boston . try pyles and algeo 's history of english if you want to know more about this particular change . - suzanne kemmer kemmer @ ruf . rice . edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 5 ) mr . weiss : i ' m not entirely sure that ' non - english < a > ' is the relevant parameter . i ' ve recently returned from the southwest , where a number of people pronounce ' colorado ' with < ae > ( a pronunciation some national news announcers reporting on the recent colorado floods also use ) . as a native of southern new england , i had always heard this word pronounced systematically and exclusively with < a > , by americans , perhaps , as you suggest , because of its spanish origin . but my recent experience shows that my pronunciation is clearly * not * the only one available . the same variation also occurs in the american pronunciations of ' vietnam ' , with some using < a > , as i do , and others using < ae > . ' native ' english words also participate in the same phenomenon : in addition to ' aunt ' , which is a well-known example , there are words such as ' bath ' , ' path ' , and ' laugh ' , which are often pronounced with < a > , not < ae > , in parts of new england . for these last four words , my native pronunciation is < ae > , although i find myself sometimes using < a > in ' aunt ' , perhaps under the influence of ' worcesterese ' . . . george aubin gaubin @ eve . assumption . edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 6 ) it seems to me that the sound represented by < a > in most european languages lies between the english [ a ] as in father and [ ae ] as in pan . the brits tend to slide it forward when pronouncing words such as padre , while the americans tend to slide it back ( except for those great lakes speakers who have shifted / a / towards the center ; they do n't shift it at all ) . in either case they are assimilating the nonexistent phone into their own phonological system . i do n't think either is more ' loyal . ' a similar phenomenon happens with the french rounded high front vowel in ' tu , ' but with speakers of different languages . english speakers , when they do n't get it right , tend to make it a high rounded back vowel [ u ] . spanish speakers tend to pronounce it as a high unrounded front vowel [ i ] . the reason why may be related to subtle shifts in location of native vowels , or customs in teaching l2s or both . michael newman mn24 @ is6 . nyu . edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 7 ) hi david . your query on linguist list about foreign ( a ) pronunciation was passed on to me by mark liberman . as he indicated in his response to you , i have just completed a phd dissertation on this subject . the central phenomenon under study was the one you noticed : the difference between american and british treatment of foreign ( a ) . the pattern you observed is indeed the main pattern of divergence between the dialects : americans tend to use the / a : / of ' father ' in words like ' pasta ' and ' mazda ' while brits tend to use the / ae / of ' fat ' . the american usage is really akin to using the / o / of ' pot ' , since for most americans outside of new england / o / and / a : / are merged ( father and bother rhyme ) . the divergence between the dialects is concentrated predominantly in closed ( or potentially closed ) syllables . in open ( or potentially open ) syllables , both dialects use / a : / : americans and brits alike pronounce ' llama , bravado , nirvana ' , etc . , with / a : / . a very good article by geoff lindsey ( 1990 ) , in a volume edited by s . ramsaran called studies in the pronunciation of english , shows that the am - br difference extends to other vowels and reflects a basic difference in the organization of am and br vowel systems : am vowels contrast along a tense-lax dimension and br along a long-short dimension . charles boberg < cboberg @ unagi . cis . upenn . edu > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 8 ) i just had a discussion of this with larry trask , an american - born vasconist working in england ( u . sussex , i think ) . ( cced ; hi , larry . ) based on that discussion , i think i can codify the phenomenon you describe . 1 . the british " nativize " foreign words much more aggressively than the americans . a couple of examples that are unrelated to the [ a ] / [ ae ] issue : " don juan " sp . [ don ' xwan ] , am . [ dan ' wan ] , but br . [ dan 'd zu &n ] ; " don quixote " sp . [ don ki ' xo te ] , am . [ dan ki ' ho ti ] , but br . [ dan ' kwik sot ] . 2 . as a relatively recent innovation ( 1700 's , i think ) , in the south of england an original [ ae ] is backed to [ a ] in some syllables whose coda contains a fricative . hence " grass " , am . and n . eng . [ graes ] , s . eng . [ gras ] ; other examples are " past " , " dance " , " entrancing " , " chaff " , " rather " . this explains [ frans ] ; it 's not an anomalous attempt to retain a foreign [ a ] , it 's a purely southern english [ a ] , exactly as you would expect from an original [ ae ] . 3 . " pasta " is anomalous . from the above account i would expect s . eng . [ past& ] ; are you telling me they say [ paest& ] ? larry ? 4 . when the syllable in question gets farther from the end of the morpheme , things get murky . for " rascal " , both [ ras kl ] and [ raes kl ] sound plausibly londony to me . but what about " vasconist " ? try as i might , i can't imagine anyone , be he ever so eton - and - oxford , saying [ ' vas k& nist ] ; i can only hear [ ' vaes . . . ] . in the foregoing , i have blurred the distinction between the low-mid [ a ] and the low back english vowel that i think looks a little like a " d " in ipa . true oxonians nearly gag every time they say " rather " . allan wechsler awechsle @ bbn . com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ( 9 ) dear david , nice question : the reason is actually differing vowel systems between us and uk . the back / a / of us that you use in words like " milan " does not exist over here : the closest is the vowel you hear in france , which is / a : / ( back ) . this vowel either occurs 1 ) as a result of the loss of rhoticity ( car , cart ) , or 2 ) ( in rp and southern english ) before voiceless fricatives ( bath ) or clusters starting with a nasal , ( dance , france : the similar vowel to the french from is therefore co-incidence ) . in the case of 2 ) this is a change ( 17 / 18th century ? ) from the front / ae / . to pronounce milan with this way would make it sound like it was spelt " milarn " . an exception to this is some speakers ' pronunciation of pakistan with 2 / a : / s . i ' m a northerner , so use / ae / in bath , france and the words like pakistan ( and iraq , iran , ( woops , but not in zimbabwe ) : may be many of us use / a : / as these have entered the language since the vowel has been available ? ) regards , maik gibson maik @ azariah . org . uk
