# Why Do Pronunciations Change Over Time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 3, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651 "2016-08-03T17:35:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/41 "2016-08-08T07:12:40Z")
I think there’s pretty much an evolutionary process involved in pronunciation, dialect and language - the system contains replication (children learning to speak, and changes rubbing off peer-to-peer), mutation (people mess up, or have their own individual variations of speaking) and selection (language only works if you are able to be understood). It would be quite unusual for language _not_ to change, given those factors. But what I really came here to say is that I always find these threads a bit funny - because the phonetic mechanisms that people use to try to describe how they speak (or how someone else does) are also subject to the system that constrains the thing they’re trying to describe. It’s no use telling me that you think ‘potato’ should be (or is) pronounced _poe TAI tow_, because I can’t reliably judge how you think the sounds ‘poe’ ‘tai’ or ‘tow’ are spoken in your accent/dialect either. The international Phonetic Alphabet should help, except it isn’t even fully universal between variants of English, ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/42 "2016-08-08T07:33:44Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I think there’s pretty much an evolutionary process involved in pronunciation, dialect and language - the system contains replication (children learning to speak, and changes rubbing off peer-to-peer), mutation (people mess up, or have their own individual variations of speaking) and selection (language only works if you are able to be understood). It would be quite unusual for language _not_ to change, given those factors. > > But what I really came here to say is that I always find these threads a bit funny - because the phonetic mechanisms that people use to try to describe how they speak (or how someone else does) are also subject to the system that constrains the thing they’re trying to describe. > > It’s no use telling me that you think ‘potato’ should be (or is) pronounced _poe TAI tow_, because I can’t reliably judge how you think the sounds ‘poe’ ‘tai’ or ‘tow’ are spoken in your accent/dialect either. > The international Phonetic Alphabet should help, except it isn’t even fully universal between variants of English, Exactly. Even in threads about pronunciation posters here still always seem to think that letters intrinsically “make sounds.” Although the IPA isn’t fully universal between variants, it still would be better than what people always do in these threads. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/43 "2016-08-08T07:50:19Z")
Well, which IPA symbols to use would change by dialect, but the symbols still are supposed to represent the same sound any time they’re used, are they not? With slight variation for each symbol, but with a lot less guesswork than when you need to try and guess which dialect and specific word is someone thinking of when they come up with transliterations. If someone uses θ, I know which sound they mean. When they use TH, it can be several different sounds, which one are they thinking about? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/44 "2016-08-08T07:56:41Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > If someone uses θ, I know which sound they mean. When they use TH, it can be several different sounds, which one are they thinking about? 😕 Obviously, TH as in THIN, not TH as in THICK. :rolleyes: I fully agree with you, but it’s been so hard to convince anyone else that IPA is both useful and easier than what we usually do that I’ve mostly given up. It was that or continue to [possibly get reported for trying to use a ‘foreign language’ on the boards.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=655922) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/45 "2016-08-08T09:18:26Z")
I’m impressed; worst that’s happened to me using IPA has been someone pointing out that “just putting something between // doesn’t make it IPA” (it was a Spanish word for which the symbols happened to match the letters). If we ever chance to meet, I owe you a beverage 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Anarcho\_Liberalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anarcho_Liberalist)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/46 "2016-08-08T15:55:52Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I fully agree with you, but it’s been so hard to convince anyone else that IPA is both useful and easier than what we usually do that I’ve mostly given up. It was that or continue to [possibly get reported for trying to use a ‘foreign language’ on the boards.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=655922) I’m sure you’re being sarcastic here since even a mod explicitly confirmed in that thread that use of IPA is not considered against the rules. I have to agree that IPA is the only good - or least bad - way to discuss pronunciation. However: the point then and now is that not everyone can read IPA and it may be quite a challenge to learn for anyone who is not fluent in any other languange than their mother language. And note that since it’s all about pronunciation, IPA can’t be learned from a book alone. Especially in GQ, it’s very likely the OP is not fluent in IPA since he/she probably wouldn’t pose a question on the subject if they were a linguist of some kind in the first place… ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/47 "2016-08-08T16:16:36Z")
> [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](#): > > I’m sure you’re being sarcastic here since even a mod explicitly confirmed in that thread that use of IPA is not considered against the rules. Yes, but it’s reliably derailing, as we see here… 😉 > [@](#): > > However: the point then and now is that not everyone can read IPA and it may be quite a challenge to learn for anyone who is not fluent in any other languange than their mother language. And note that since it’s all about pronunciation, IPA can’t be learned from a book alone. Especially in GQ, it’s very likely the OP is not fluent in IPA since he/she probably wouldn’t pose a question on the subject if they were a linguist of some kind in the first place… An English-language speaker can learn the subset of IPA needed to do a good broad transcription of English pretty quickly, or as quickly as they can learn a dictionary respelling system. (That is, a DIK-shun-AIR-ee re-SPELL-ing SISS-tum.) [Wikipedia does a pretty good job](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English) by explicitly accounting for dialectical variation and providing multiple examples. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/48 "2016-08-08T16:18:06Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Obviously, TH as in THIN, not TH as in THICK. > :rolleyes: I’m probably being whooshed, but the _th_ in “thin” and “thick” are the same in my dialect. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/49 "2016-08-08T16:20:14Z")
[Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story, by Michael Rosen](https://www.amazon.com/Alphabetical-Every-Letter-Tells-Story/dp/161902702X/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470672920&sr=1-8&keywords=michael+rosen) devotes a chapter to every letter, with lots of attention to its pronunciation and how that relates to spelling. It’s not at all academic, although stuffed with facts, anecdotes, examples, and histories. That also means it doesn’t give a coherent, chronological discussion of change. Good bedtime reading for word buffs. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/50 "2016-08-08T17:01:13Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’m impressed; worst that’s happened to me using IPA has been someone pointing out that “just putting something between // doesn’t make it IPA” (it was a Spanish word for which the symbols happened to match the letters). If we ever chance to meet, I owe you a beverage 🙂 Perhaps an IPA? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/51 "2016-08-08T17:54:25Z")
> [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](#): > > However: the point then and now is that not everyone can read IPA and it may be quite a challenge to learn for anyone who is not fluent in any other languange than their mother language. And note that since it’s all about pronunciation, IPA can’t be learned from a book alone. Especially in GQ, it’s very likely the OP is not fluent in IPA since he/she probably wouldn’t pose a question on the subject if they were a linguist of some kind in the first place… Actually, my first encounter with phonetics was in 9th grade Spanish and the only symbols we learned were those for Spanish, but it’s been a long time and I only remember a few of them with 100% certainty. We were never supposed to learn any more symbols; the teacher who taught us a bunch of additional ones for English was working outside the curriculum. When I’m not sure what’s the symbol for one of the “funky” Spanish ones (such as the many versions of X, or the one for ñ) I just google _AFI del español_ and make liberal use of copypaste. Why would one need to be multilingual to learn a new way to transcribe one’s language? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/52 "2016-08-08T19:24:10Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Exactly. Even in threads about pronunciation posters here still always seem to think that letters intrinsically “make sounds.” > > Although the IPA isn’t fully universal between variants, it still would be better than what people always do in these threads. Just as good are the threads where it is asserted that English spelling needs to be standardised. I mean, I agree that the spelling ‘eight’ is not a particularly intuitive way of spelling the name of the number 8, but what’s the alternative? Not everyone pronounces it the same as ‘ate’, so that’s not a perfect choice, and casting around even my own country, I can find too many different variations to possibly be represented by any common spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Anarcho\_Liberalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anarcho_Liberalist)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/53 "2016-08-08T19:41:58Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Why would one need to be multilingual to learn a new way to transcribe one’s language? I didn’t use the word _need_, nor did I imply this. My point is that I imagine it may be difficult to grasp the concept of vocal sounds that don’t exist in the only language you know. Of course you could limit your knowledge of IPA to sounds from your own languange, but that seems close to pointless since you already know how to pronounce the written kind… ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/54 "2016-08-08T19:49:11Z")
> [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](#): > > I didn’t use the word _need_, nor did I imply this. My point is that I imagine it may be difficult to grasp the concept of vocal sounds that don’t exist in the only language you know. Of course you could limit your knowledge of IPA to sounds from your own languange, but that seems close to pointless since you already know how to pronounce the written kind… To a degree, but dialects of English have most of their phonemes in common, even ones that have been dropped or changed in a particular word. For instance, non-rhotic dialects still pronounce the r _sometimes_, so they know what it sounds like. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/55 "2016-08-08T19:59:50Z")
How is one even supposed to TYPE in IPA? ---
**Author:** ![Anarcho\_Liberalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anarcho_Liberalist)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/56 "2016-08-08T20:27:42Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How is one even supposed to TYPE in IPA? [http://ipa.typeit.org/full/](http://ipa.typeit.org/full/) Type, then copy/paste ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/57 "2016-08-08T22:59:18Z")
I just find IPA to be more trouble than it’s worth in these types of threads. I don’t see a single person having trouble in this thread, despite its lack of use. If I use it, I’m going to have to explain what sound I mean anyway, so why not just use letters that English speaking people would have a chance at pronouncing correctly without help? How many people would find it easier if RAY-di-oh was typed as [ˈɹeɪ̈dɨoʊ̈]? Or if I’d written [ˈsɒntoʊ̈ ˈvoʊ̈t͡ʃeɪ̈] instead of SAHN-toh VOH-chay? I mean, I’ve known IPA for years and I find the modified English respelling easier to read. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/58 "2016-08-09T00:22:43Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > How many people would find it easier if RAY-di-oh was typed as [ˈɹeɪ̈dɨoʊ̈]? Your point is clear … yet partly refuted by your own example! The IPA symbols show that “radio” is being pronounced with two diphthongs — i.e. American-style, not with the crisp pure vowels that French prefers! For ordinary use, we’d like something much simpler than IPA, but trying to render as “ordinary English” is not a good general answer. I had an American friend who wanted to memorize how to pronounce the easily-pronounced name of his Thai neighbor, so he wrote it down. … And ended up memorizing a totally wrong pronunciation. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/59 "2016-08-09T06:09:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I just find IPA to be more trouble than it’s worth in these types of threads. I don’t see a single person having trouble in this thread, despite its lack of use. Apart from the people who explicitly said it was a problem, there’s no problem. > [@](#): > > If I use it, I’m going to have to explain what sound I mean anyway, so why not just use letters that English speaking people would have a chance at pronouncing correctly without help? How are you going to explain what sound you mean, except by describing other sounds I have also never actually heard you speak? How will that help? > [@](#): > > How many people would find it easier if RAY-di-oh was typed as [ˈɹeɪ̈dɨoʊ̈]? Or if I’d written [ˈsɒntoʊ̈ ˈvoʊ̈t͡ʃeɪ̈] instead of SAHN-toh VOH-chay? I mean, I’ve known IPA for years and I find the modified English respelling easier to read. I don’t think anyone is claiming IPA would be easy, just that it is less ambiguous. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651/60 "2016-08-09T07:33:34Z")
> [@Anarcho\_Liberalist](#): > > Of course you could limit your knowledge of IPA to sounds from your own languange, but that seems close to pointless since you already know how to pronounce the written kind… Only, our point is that you/we _don’t_ know what sounds someone means when they’re transcribing using something other than IPA, because each writer is thinking of specific words and of their specific dialect; they’re using a transcription tool that the rest of us do not have full access to. And that IPA pronunciation of radio doesn’t have two dipthongs: it has a dipthong and a tripthong. A group of two vowels (eɪ̈) and one of three (ɨoʊ̈). Meanwhile, “oh” is sometimes (as in this case) used to mean two vowels (oʊ̈) but in others to mean only one (o). So, which one is it? Without further context, I have no idea. Whomever wrote it does, but I do not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pronunciations-change-over-time/761651.md?page=4)