Talk:Phonological history of English diphthongs

ɑu becomes ɒː

I am a little confused. Currently, in Modern English, au is pronounced as /ɔː/. And according to another page: Phonological History of English, when the diphthong au was monophthongized, it monophthongized to /ɔː/. On the other hand, this page says the vowel was changed to /ɑu/ and then /ɒː/. In the latter theory, how the digraph au got its pronunciation of /ɔː/ is unexplained. So, I simply ask for details. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.218.18 (talk) 03:26, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Rod-ride merger

Previously, somebody else also made a comment in a section now archived called African American etc. Tipping my hat off to him, I repeat his comment below:

"Aside from the fact that this 'vernacular' doesn't exist, Anyone who's been to America will tell you the "rod-ride" merger is a southern thing, with no racial affiliation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.130.241 (talk) 05:35, 27 May 2013 (UTC)"  

Furthermore, when I went on the page African American Vernacular English, I saw no mention of the rod-ride merger. However, when I went on Southern American English, the merger was mentioned as Stage 1 of the Southern Vowel Shift. Therefore, I am going to change the section to read that the merger occurs in Southern American English instead of African American Vernacular English. 74.102.216.186 (talk) 01:22, 8 November 2016‎ (UTC)

It seems that somebody else added "African American Vernacular English" back in along with "Southern American English." So, I rechecked the page African American Vernacular English. However, I switched how I checked. The first time, I typed "rod" into Ctrl+F, and no results came up. The second time, I typed "aɪ" into Ctrl+F, and there was a section which addressed the merger. So, therefore, to whoever re-typed in "African American Vernacular English," you win the debate. We can agree on the current text.74.102.216.186 (talk) 03:09, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

"Mare–mayor merger"

This is a nonsensical name, as both words are often monosyllabic even in the dialects without the merger, see e.g. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mayor https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mayor https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mayor https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mayor . The correct term is triphthong smoothing, cf. e.g. https://journals.umcs.pl/nh/article/download/5794/4071 http://www.englishpronunciationmadrid.com/vowels/vowels/smoothing/ http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2009/12/triphthongs-anyone.html 195.187.108.4 (talk) 12:00, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Audio

Audio examples would really help — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:AA1E:F000:990C:FB24:1B5E:ACAC (talk) 20:53, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Pane-Pain Merger

Why is there a link in the article to a section on the pane-pain merger when there is no section about that merger? Please add a section about that merger or else correct the link to point to whichever other article contains that information. Thank you. 1.126.106.66 (talk) 08:51, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Until about a year ago, the pain-pane and toe-tow mergers were separate subsections of the long mid mergers section, until one editor decided to remove the subsections. IMO it was a mistake to do so as it broke numerous links to the subsections and "hid away" the information under a much more obscure (to the layman) title which is inconsistent with the section titles used elsewhere on the page. I have therefore reversed the change. Offa29 (talk) 11:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

"Modern RP"

The description of "modern RP" should be updated, and preferably renamed to SSB. Modern SSB doesn't pronounce SQUARE as a diphthong, and pronounces the FLEECE and GOOSE vowels as closing diphthongs [ɪj] and [ʉw], among other pronunciation changes. DdeWylvyn (talk) 17:54, 20 October 2024 (UTC)