Talk:Vowel shift

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New Zealand English vowel shift

I believe there is a very rapid vowel shift ocurring in New Zealand that allows linguits to see a vowel shift ocurring in less than 20 years. The example I remember being discussed (on BBC Radio 4) was "Pen", "Pin", and "Pan", whereby each one has taken the meaning of another (does that make sense?).

Anyway, I'd come to the vowel shift page hoping to read about this rapid vowel shift.

Actually, it isn’t a rapid shift. The vowel shift is: ɪ → ə; ɛ → e → ɪ; æ → ɛ (without knowing what dialect of English you speak, it's hard to say what these IPA characters correspond to in terms of your dialect). More simply (perhaps) consider the way you pronounce vowels: You move your tongue up or down and you move it front or back. In most English dialects, the vowel of FLEECE has the tongue at its highest, front-most position, but in Australian English (AuE) it's actually KIT, and in New Zealand English (NZE), it's DRESS for some speakers (but NEAR for the rest). Other vowels pronounced with the tongue in a front position (for most dialects) include DRESS and TRAP. What's happened in NZE is that the TRAP vowel has moved up towards where DRESS was articulated, so DRESS moved up to near where KIT was articulated, and KIT pulled itself back and nearer to the centre of the tongue's available space, out of the way, somewhat like the way an American says the word ‘strut’.

The shift has been going on for a very long time, since Brits first moved to New Zealand when the vowel in HEAD was already pronounced as /e/. It might've accellerated a bit in the last twenty years, I dunno, and perhaps it seems more obvious than it used to, because in the 1960s Australian English had the æ → ɛ change to, but this has since receeded (and some linguists claim that the ɛ → e AuE has had is beginning to receed. Of course, Australian English treated /ɪ/ differently, turning it into [i] which prevented DRESS from rising any further.

To me the NZ DRESS vowel is very striking (and my main cue for distinguishing NZ from Aus). From my (northern English) perspective, NZ pun sounds like pan, pan sounds like pen and pen sounds like pin.--JHJ 20:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, STRUT was also lowered and moved to the centre, possibly thanks to the forward-movement of TRAP. I forget, because AuE STRUT sounds like NZE STRUT. Australian's cue for distinguishing AuE and NZE is actually their centralised /ɪ/ ... and particularly with the vowels and diphthongs, there's almost no difference. It's a bit funny, when you're talking to someone who turns out to be a Kiwi, and it takes a few sentences before they say something you can't understand because you didn't realise it. Driss? What's that? (—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ))

A similar change has happened with the back vowels, too, but here it affected not just short vowels (KIT DRESS TRAP; STRUT LOT FOOT), but also long vowels (NORTH, GOOSE) and diphthongs (CHOICE, PRICE). This one's happened the same in Australian English, too. What happened here is that all the vowels rise again, so that (for instance) LOT sounds like the British pronounciation of 'north', and NORTH sounds like the Scottish pronunciation of 'goat'. GOOSE (earlier a high back vowel) has moved to towards the centre or front of the mouth, going from a sound like French OU to French U. PRICE also sounds a bit like British 'choice', though not nearly as much as the LOT/NORTH vowels I mentioned before. I don't know why this one doesn't get mentioned as much as the front vowels. Perhaps it's because you can tell the difference between LOT and NORTH by the vowel length as well, so it's less noticeable, perhaps because it happened the same in Australian English as New Zealand so we Aussies are less likely to comment, perhaps because aspects of this have also happened in Britain and America too (particularly the GOOSE-fronting) ... I'm not really sure.

I hear Aus PRICE as noticeably different from mine, but similar things happen in many British accents too, mainly in southern England and the West Midlands (e.g. Brummie). I don't notice anything distinctive about NZ or Aus LOT or NORTH/FORCE/THOUGHT.

I'm of the understanding that north-of-England LOT is /ɔ/ anyway, so that just means the antipodean value returned (or never left) an older/northern value. RP and other Southern British NORTH is noticeable for having a pretty American-sounding value to my ears, and I've heard that from others (e.g. a Kiwi made a similar observation on Talk:New_Zealand_English#IPA_for_NZE_vowels). Of course, it's not really all that noticeable because there's a redundant length distinction between these qualities in at least southern English & near enough to one in AuE, perhaps more generally. So it's not like you'll think ‘pun’ sounds like ‘pan’ or anything... (—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ))

(NORTH and FORCE are generally merged in both NZ and Aus, aren't they? They're somewhat different for me.)

Yes. The amount of times I've seen (and written!) ‘sore’ for ‘saw’ (to saw/a saw, oddly never to see) or vice-versa ... :) Some people (generally middle-aged women) use [oə] as an allophone of /oː/ word-finally. (—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ))

One distinctive NZ vowel you haven't mentioned is NURSE; it sounds to me something like a rounded [ɪ], but I'm not sure quite how that fits into the vowel shift. By the way, I think the phonetic/phonological bits of the New Zealand English page need a lot of work - do you know enough to do some?--JHJ 20:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the AuE and NZE NURSE vowels are often rounded and fronted to some extent. I've seen people propose writing NZ NURSE as /øː/ or /ʏː/. In Australian English, I gather the fronting's (at least) happened since the 1970s, possibly related to /ʉː/ passing the central position around then. But NZE NURSE is normally described as being further forwards that AuE, whereas AuE GOOSE is further in front of NZE, so I'm not sure how much you can actually consider it a part of GOOSE-fronting/the back-vowel anti-clockwise rotation. In any case, I can't hear the difference between NZE, AuE NURSE and (say) German öh or French eu.

Actually, I don't think it's the fronting and rounding I'm noticing - indeed I think my NURSE vowel is heading in the [œː] direction. I think it's partly the height, and partly that the vowel sounds quite short to me. (The same thing happens with the NZ START/PALM/BATH vowel. Some NZ accents I've heard seem to my ears to have their "broad A" BATH vowel very similar to my "short A" BATH vowel. I don't notice this in AusE.)--JHJ 17:18, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to write a bit on NZE Phonetics, but I can't really do anything just yet...

—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 01:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Did this explanation help?

—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 12:44, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Wait, you are the same JHJ who said ‘Personally … I distinguish higher and hire, and would consider the former to be two syllables and the latter to be one…’? You speak non-rhotic English but distinguish them? How do they sound? Or do you have accent that is sometimes non-rhotic? Anyway, I know I've heard British accents that appear to have a frontish roundedish vowel in NURSE, but I've normally attributed this to mishearing something. I noticed that until today, I thought my Uncle had the same vowel as I do, but no—he seems to have an almost perfect [əː] (or at least as perfect to that as an Aussie gets).

I understand the NZ NURSE vowel is maybe marginally higher than AusE; not nearly the same as the diff b/n our respective DRESSes. Of course, this makes sense if it's a front vowel (all Kiwi front monophthongs are higher) and rounded (it needs to be careful not to clash with /ʉː/) or unrounded and short (… /ɪ ~ e/). I don't really notice a huge difference tho, as I said. But I've never noticed any shortening in NZE vowels (which doesn't, of course mean anything; because if there is a merger I'll probably unwravel it without noticing it unless it gets in the way of communication). Notice that a shortened broad A in NZE would be homophonous with NZE STRUT: Between these vowels, the difference is length, same as on this side of the Tasman.

—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 00:46, 29 September 2005 (UTC)