Make a recording, please, and post it here. And what accent is yours, if one may ask?
And for the record, my former mother-in-law’s name is Marry. She’s German. It’s pronounced identically to the name Mary and the words marry and merry.
Same here (also from St. Louis, although not in the city, if that makes a difference), and I pronounce Missouri the second way.
Usually I see it transcribed this way –
Mary = meɪri
Marry = mæri
Merry = mɛri
The end vowel might just be the difference between General American and Received Pronunciation.
The end vowel is the same, but you’re not using IPA for that, just typing in a letter i. It’s the middle vowels that are different, which isn’t surprising, since we have different accents.
@kittenblue: my accent is Britsh RP. I might record something at some point when I have a microphone to hand. But I assure you I do actually say those words differently.
Was there ever a thread on here where people posted recordings of themselves? I’ve seen it done on another board, with a list of words which were written for that purpose (by some linguist or other), some of which tend to have the same or very similar pronunciations across multiple English dialects and some of which are known to vary widely.
If we did it here we should definitely add Mary, marry, merry, thing, sing, get and wet, if they’re not on there already.
I’m confused. /i/ is IPA, for a long “ee” type of sound. /ɪ/ corresponds to a short “i.” For example, “pip” is /pɪp/ and “peep” is /pip/ in IPA. (Actually, /pi:p/ would be better.)
See, to my ear, it sounds like the last two are both “reeng”, just that the seconds is absurdly close, almost to the level of a /j/.
I also note that, while I can tell your “ring” is not as close, it still sounds like /i/. To me, the characteristic sound of /i/ is not how close it is, anyways. It is how far front it is. While /ɪ/ is usually more open, it’s defining trait is that it is a mid-front vowel, and lacks that “ping”. I can say /ɪ/ and /i/ only changing the position of my tongue, and not my jaw.
Finally, I offer my hypothesis that the vowel used by most people in saying -ing words really isn’t /ɪ/ or /i/. but something in between. Hence why some people hear it as one vowel and others another. In actuality, there is no phonemic difference.
Y’all might want to hold off on correcting CanvasShoes’ error, until we find out if, just maybe, he/she really meant to say that Alaska, being recently and thinly settled by English speakers from many places, has no regional English accent of its own (yet) – i.e., one that is distinctly “Alaskan”.
I can assure you that I’m using IPA for that.
Two words: Sarah Palin.
I suspect that may be the case. I don’t find it difficult to understand how some people hear it as an /i/. I personally think it’s closer to /ɪ/ in most cases, but when I do say something like “We three kings,” the “king” sounds a bit closer to /i/, although not quite an /i/ in my accent. From what I can tell, it seems to me that the nasalization of the “ng” either changes the vowel or our perception of it.
OK. It doesn’t look like the IPA i to me, because the dot on that is usually more square, but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t know any dialects had a long i sound at the end of Mary, marry and merry - British RP definitely doesn’t. So that’s another difference as well as the middle vowel sounds.
IPA defines a set of symbols. It doesn’t require you to use a specific typeface.
Yes, in fact that to me is one of the noticeable characteristics of RP, the [ɪ] at the end of words instead of *.
Yes, but in all the symbols I see, the i is not just a regular i. No matter.
I’ve never actually heard an American say i instead of ɪ unless they’re intentionally elongating the last syllable, but perhaps I just haven’t noticed it (obviously it is a sound my dialect has, so I’m not deaf to it). I’ll listen for it next time I watch an American TV show.
Here’s an example of “merry” pronounced in the American way. And the page with the definition and pronunciation. (No IPA, but marks the last syllable as a long “e.”)
I do note that Collins shows the /ɪ/ pronunciation.
Huh, I suppose that is a i (can’t be bothered to get the right symbol) rather than a ɪ.
Though I still think it’s the middle vowels in Mary/marry/merry which really mark out Mid-West American and British RP rather than the end vowel.
I really do think the regular “i” is okay. Whether the dot is square or round doesn’t make a difference so far as I can tell, and seems to be more a function of the typeface. Look up the IPA charts, and you’ll find official ones like these (WARNING: PDF) that have the “i” with a rounded dot.
You just linked to the same thing twice.
Oh, I thought the first would link to the audio file, but apparently it doesn’t. Click on the speaker icon to hear it.
ETA: Or, wait, try this for the audio.
“Be merry, Mack.”
“I’ll marry Mack.”
“It’s Mary Mack!”
“It’s the Merrimac!”
Yup. Same sound in all of 'em. Maybe a leeetle difference between merry and Mary/marry, but not enough that I could tell which one you meant with no context.
They are completely different for me. Where I live no one would ever confuse one of those three words for another.