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Subject:
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Different pronunciations of some common words
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Question:
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What information do you have about the (mis) pronounciations of both as "bolth", and ask as "axe"? I have spent the better part of an hour on the internet trying to get an answer to this question. Thank you so much for your generous assistance.
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Reply:
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The forms /æsk/ and /æks/ for {ask} go way way back into Old English , aka Anglo-Saxon. The same is true for {wasp}. So one finds acsian and ascian both in OE and also both wapsa and waspa. This phonological phenomenon is called a metathesis and metatheses of stops and continuants and obstruents and sonorants are actually quite common among languages of the world.
The best place to look for early forms of English words is the Oxford English Dictionary. There is an online version -- the print document is in several volumes but can find at any academic library as well as all large and many medium public libraries.
I haven't heard the {both} word with an inserted /l/ but it doesn't surprise me. The vowel is /ō/, a round mid back vowel and a number of dialects of English, including "standard" Midwestern North American, have both a "dark" velar lateral liquid [ɬ] and a front palatal [ľ ]. The velar /l/ is very like an /u/ or /o/ vowel and a /w/ glide and it sometimes gets inserted. I knew a boy who though {house} was spelled *houlse" because he was sure he heard an [ɬ ] in there. In fact, in his speech, there was one.
U of Cincinnati
Dept of Anthropology
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Reply From:
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Joseph F Foster
click here to access email
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| Date: |
Oct-13-2009
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Other Replies:
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Re: Different pronunciations of some common words
Nancy J. Frishberg
(Oct-13-2009)
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Re: Different pronunciations of some common words
Herbert Frederic Stahlke
(Oct-13-2009)
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