The sixth one, however, I was unfamiliar with. It’s the fourth map in the image and the question is “Do ‘one’ and ‘won’ sound the same?”
In my own accent, both words are pronounced as [wʌn].
Apparently in North Wales, the Midlands, and the North they don’t sound the same. I’m having trouble finding more information and examples of this, possibly because of the difficulty of searching for “one” and “won.”
Does anyone have more information on this? Examples? Transcriptions?
Based on my experience, I’d say the vowel in “one” is “rounder” in the north of England, more like “woon.” How “won” would be pronounced, I’m not sure.
Brought up in London (essentially RP-speaker) but I worked for a time in North Staffordshire. To me “but” and “put” are different (the one pronounced as in “up” the other as in “look”) , but in the Potteries I often heard people pronounce them the same (as in “putt” or “butt”). Likewise to me “won” and “one” are the same (as in “sun”), but again in the Potteries I’d hear “one” pronounced as in “on” or “song”. I have the impression it’s much the same across the north Midlands and north from there, but I’m no expert.
To me - “one” is pronounced “wun”, and rhymes with “ton” and “sun”.
And “won” rhymes with “gone”.
My city’s name (in English) is pronounced “Mun-treal” by locals, but “Mon-treal” by outsiders. (and the largest city in Ontario is pronounced “Tranna”)
This. “Putt” rhymes with “but”, as does “butt”. Both start like “butter”, “Put” is different, and sounds more like “book”. They are quite different, and I can’t recall every meeting anyone who pronounced them the same.
The put-but merger seems to me very characteristic of many North Country accents. If you watch shows like Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, you’ll hear Yorkshire accents that have the merger.
So, if Blindboyard has that accent, PatrickLondon and Puzzlegal’s explanations aren’t going to help, because Blindboyard pronounces all those vowels identically.
I.P.A. would show this—
Foot-strut split: [ʊ] and [ʌ]
foot [fʊt]
put [pʊt]
look [lʊk]
book [bʊk]
strut [strʌt]
but [bʌt]
up [ʌp]
putt [pʌt]
butter[bʌtɚ]
Foot-strut merger: all [ʊ]
foot [fʊt]
put [pʊt]
look [lʊk]
book [bʊk]
strut [strʊt]
but [bʊt]
up [ʊp]
putt [pʊt]
butter[bʊtə]
I suspect that the chart isn’t really showing a vowel split issue; rather, it’s a rhoticism issue.
If you look around on the web, you can find several reports of children who were confused while watching Disney’s “Brave” : “Why does the princess want to change her feet” (Merida was saying “fate” in her Scottish accent)
Looking at Wiktionary’s pronunciations, “one” can be /wʌn/, /wɒn/ (UK), /wan/ (Australian), [wɐn] (RP), or [wän] (Australian). For “won”, I just see the /wʌn/ pronunciation listed. There is the note: “Homophone: one (some dialects only)”
(and the largest city in Ontario is pronounced “Tranna”)