I’d say that the Australian pronunciation is close to that said by “readmylips” (Canadian female), “potahto_head” (Canadian male) and “dusich” (US male) which differs from most of the other UK/US/CA pronunciations there.
The pronunciation by Heracleum (Italian male) and Aledogn (Italian male) has a similar sounding “a” in the first syllable, to that used by many Australians and the three examples mentioned earlier. The true Italian pronunciation, however, appears to stretch the emphasis on the first syllable even further than how we say it, with the 2nd syllable almost added as an afterthought!
I’m sorry, that is not a very useful reference. All it is is a guide for translating IPA into the author’s idea of “American”, which as you have observed is not necessarily the same as other people’s pronunciation. The “Brit” column is almost worthless. The article even admits that “one symbol can mean two different phonemes”, which seems to go against the whole point of IPA.
My English teacher too tried really hard to teach me that. But failed. I can’t bring myself to say [ɝː] because it doesn’t sound like a word. It’s just a grunt. Air sounds much nicer. I defied the official pronunciation for Anita Kerr too, as Care sounds better than Cur.
Actually, while /a/ is supposed to represent a low front vowel, in practice, /a/ is often used to represent a low, central vowel (properly transcribed as /ä/). That’s the main A vowel in Spanish, Italian, German, Hindi, Bengali, and many other languages.
That /a/ (really /ä/) is the one that sounds silly to American ears to replace with /æ/, because it’s an “AH” sound, like /ɑ/ is, not a æ sound.
I think there are a lot of perceptual issues here, but I am going to try to tease it out, and make my case as well as I can, despite the fact that I am not any kind of expert.
When we hear a foreign sound, we tend to identify it with the closest sound in our own language.
North American English doesn’t have a sound that is very close to the Italian [a] in pasta. Forced to choose between something like “poss-tuh” and something like “pess-tuh”, North American English speakers say “poss-tuh”.
Irish and British English does have a sound that is somewhat closer to the Italian [a], namely our way of saying the English phoneme [æ]. However, an American listener identifies this sound with the (somewhat different) American way of saying the phoneme [æ], so it sounds to them as if we are saying “pess-tuh”.
Combining the fact that Americans identify the Italian [a] with the American [ɑ] (as confirmed by your describing them both as a “AH” sound), and that they identify the Irish/British [æ] with the American [æ], it is not surprising that they perceive our mispronunciation as being more egregious than their mispronunciation.
Yes, I think ascenray and Hibernicus have it right. I learned something new from this exchange, and I won’t disparage the British use of the ae sound for Spanish or Italian letter a quite so harshly in the future.
I think this basically accords with what I’m saying. If I had any quibble, it would just be with this:
I don’t think it really is accurate to say that the Irish-British /æ/ is really significantly closer to Italian (etc.) /ä/ in any objective way. So far as I am concerned, the American /æ/ and the Irish-British /æ/ are quite close to each other, and about as equally distant from /ä/. I suppose the Irish-British /æ/ is slightly closer to /a/, but then again part of my assertion here is that we’re really talking about /ä/, not /a/.
That might just be a personal bias, though, because I actually do have an /ä/ in my speech that I distinguish from /ɑ/ and /ɒ/ (and I don’t have an /a/), which is unusual for people with my accent.
So when I hear people substituting Spanish/Italian/etc. /ä/ for any other low vowel, it stands out as “wrong” to my ear. So both Hiberno-British [pæstə] and American [pɑːstə] sound wrong to me, because it “should” be [pästä]
So with the father-bother issue –
Those without merger say /fɑːðɚ/ and /bɒðɚ/
Those with merger say /fɑːðɚ/ and /bɑːðɚ/
I say /fäðɚ/ and either /bɑːðɚ/ or /bɒðɚ/
I suppose in Irish speech, they’re even more separated, as /faðɚ/ and /bɒðɚ/
For all those that are contributing to this thread you do realise that there isn’t any objective “correct” way of pronouncing any word don’t you? (though I’d concede you do get to clarify how you pronounce your own name)
I know we’ve expended a lot of keystrokes in knocking various concepts about but all it boils down to is a variation of “they talk funny in that next village” which has been played out since time immemorial.
As long as you make yourself understood then your pronunciation is serving its purpose. Introducing an “r” sound into pasta (as some USA people do) doesn’t prevent me from knowing that you are requesting a durum wheat based foodstuff.
So…what are we trying to achieve here other than confirm what we already know? i.e. language is fluid, other people talk funny and the concept of “British” pronunciation is a myth.
Novelty Bobble, I hear what you’e saying, and most of us at the Dope tand to lean a bit more toward the descriptivist camp, so not to worry…BUT, this thread is not so much about mere variation within a language, but rather variation within a language of attempts to pronounce a sound which only exists in a different language. So, that’s why, in this case, we’re leaning a bit more toward prescriptivist discussions.
“Descriptivists” tend to prefer just describing language the way people speak (and/or write), while “prescriptivists” tend to prefer instructing people on how they should speak and/or write.
Because there are standard forms of languages that are (fundamentally arbitrarily) appropriate for certain social settings or written forms of communication, there is certainly a place for prescriptivists in all our lives. But academic linguists tend to be much more descriptivist, and it’s important to have that kind of analysis in our lives, too. Dictionaries tend to try to have it both ways, and each dictionary is known for its particular brand of compromise.
Novelty Bobble is English. He’s hearing the US “-ah” (see hibernicus and ascenray’s exchange, above) as an “r-colored ‘a’ in non-rhotic British English”.
(He could be referring to the “intrusive r” some people put after a word ending in a vowel if the next word begins with one – see second post of this thread – but I doubt it.)
That long drawing out of the word certainly sounds like an “r” to me. It corresponds to exactly my pronunciation of “part” “car” “hard” etc. So the only way I can describe it is by reference to the insertion of an r.
I’m sure you don’t think of it as an “r” sound but that is how it sounds to me. (and as I said, there is a split in British english that does exactly the same thing)
Which brings me back to my point. You say the word “pasta” differently to me, that is all. Neither you or I, nor even the Italians are “correct”. If any of us use a variation of that word and we remain understood then that is fine. It has served the purpose and is “correct” by the only definition that matters.