Midwest - I pronounce it with a long a.
Rang, rain, pain, mane, bang, all have the same vowel sound.
This for me too. “Rang” is basically pronounced like “ran” + g; not “rain” + g.
Agreed. Born, raised and live in No. California.
I would say rang and bang might have slightly different vowel sounds than rain and pane; but vastly vastly different from ran and pan. And like Zyanthia, I find it physically awkward to take the a sound from ran or pan and then nasalize it. Far weirder than trying to pronounce the ø sound from Danish or whatever-it-is, or the ü sound from German (IPA = y).
OK, I’m confused. I’ve in Southern California for pretty much my entire life, and I have never consciously noted anyone pronounce rang with a long a. Is that what’s being claimed we do? I’ll try to listen more carefully, but I’m extremely dubious.
I say it with a long a (sounds like rain), but hearing it with a short a also sounds fine to me.
This was my thought, too. I’ve lived in the mountain west, west coast, and midwest, and never heard anyone pronounce rang as raing.
This seems like making something out of nothing. WTF, “California English”? :dubious:
I’ve lived in South Texas all my life. I also pronounce “rang” with a long A like “rain”.
I’ve tried saying it with a short A, I can’t even do it.
Done ringed.
The vowel in rain is a diphthong the way I say it: an “ay” followed by an “ee.” Transcribed as reɪn. I can feel my tongue moving up in my mouth in the middle of the sound.
The vowel in “rang” is not a diphthong the way I say it: it’s ræŋ. My tongue is lower during the vowel and doesn’t move until it needs to get into position for the nasal consonant. I guess it sort of rhymes with “ran” but the nasalization for the “ng” changes the resonance of the word so it doesn’t sound so much alike.
Edit: I really think the nasal ŋ is throwing people here on what they consider a long versus a short vowel.
Canada too.
Native of Cleveland, Ohio. The vowel in rang is the same as in ran. I don’t raise it before -ng.
This raises another question. Does anyone pronounce “anger” with a long “a,” like “ainger”? I’ve always heard it with a short “a,” “anger.”
Same here in Pittsburgh, PA. I associate the “rayng” pronunciation with the southern US.
Rang rhymes with bang.
I can’t really wrap my head around how it’s possible to say it any other way. Can we get a sound clip?
WA & a bit of CA
the vowel in rang is the same as or very close to the vowel in rain.
The vowel in ran in quite different - when I try to say ran with a “ng” at the end, it doesn’t sound like a word.
The way I say “rang” doesn’t quite rhyme with either “ran” or “rain”. It seems to me more of a diphthong. It starts out with the “a” as in “ran”, but as I begin to pronounce the “ng”, the back of my tongue comes to the upper palate and the sound approaches an “ee” as in “feed”. Is that what the wikipedia article means by “Front vowels are raised before /ŋ/”?
That gives us no information on the OP question, which is about a vowel shift that occurs only before the sound of -ng. The question is do you pronounce rang with the vowel sound in ran or in rain?
Yes. Look at the vowel chart. The vowels are arranged spatially to correspond to the location where the vowel is produced, high or low, front or back or central.
The vowel /æ/ as in ran is placed low on the chart, and it’s literally formed low in the mouth. The diphthong that you described sounds like [eɪ]—as the chart shows, [e] is higher than [æ], and [ɪ] is higher still. The diphthong [eɪ] is one of the standard English vowel sounds, e.g. in rain, pronounced [reɪn].