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Ask-A-Linguist - Message details
Subject: Length of vowels
Question:
I remember hearing that while English vowels sometimes differ in length, it only sounds a little strange if you change the lengths of them. For example, we could say the ''u'' sound in proof as long as prove, and it would only sound odd. It wasn't surprising to hear then that some languages do distinguish length. I was, however, very surprised to hear that Estonian has three different distinctions. Are there languages with more? What is the limit?

Reply:
This isn't an answer to your question really, but...

The patterns of vowel length in English are not straighforward and vary from one accent to another. In some accents there are only allophonic differences in length (as in your example, where the relative length of the vowel is linked to the following consonant). But in other accents there is also a phonemic difference in length. In most accents with this distinction, the longer vowel is also tenser (i.e. pronounced more towards the edge of the mouth) than the short one, as is the case in many accents between 'pick' and 'peak'. This is not always the case, though. For example, in my own accent there is little or no quality difference between the vowel of 'fun' and that of 'fern' -- the only difference between these two words is the length of the vowel (I do not pronounce an /r/ in this word). This gives me a 5-way length distinction in some vowels, roughly in this order from shortest to longest (in stressed syllables).
short vowel before voiceless consonants; short vowel beforre voiced consonants; long vowel before voiceless consonants; short vowel before voiceless consonants; long vowel before voiced consonants; long vowel in word final position.

All languages are faced by similar complexity of interaction between the phonetic and the phonemic, and with a range of accents, and the number of distinctions of length a language is said to have will depend on how the counting has been done.

Anthea

Reply From: Anthea Fraser Gupta    click here to access email
Date: Sep-10-2009
Other Replies:
  1. Re: Length of vowels Elizabeth J Pyatt    (Sep-10-2009)
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