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Ox—Ah—Awe merger, spelling standard etc.
BP Jonsson
(The key to my QS transcription: <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1agqPz7-cHgboyI2it-j2LkI1P1r-jChVJL9QDjAE-AE/>)
I recall a user who had been a QS user since back in the day when people corresponded in QS by snail mail and Read was a participant saying that apart from the rule to write {r} after vowels people were expected to reflect their pronunciation in their spelling, as I understand it whenever there was a difference in sound units used rather than a difference in how people pronounce the same sound unit. See <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_set> for the details. You will notice that the BATH and CLOTH lexical sets pertain to the difference in distribution between {A/a} (Ah/at) [ɑ/æ] and {o/Q} (Ox/Awe) [ɒ/ɔ] between British English (although people who have the actual {Q}/Awe/[ɔ] vowel in CLOTH are almost extinct on both sides of the pond). There is no reason not to write these vowels as each writer pronounces them. Communication will not break down because the distinction has a really low functional load <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_load>.
The same is true of the loss of the {o—A—Q}/Ox—Ah—Awe/LOT—PALM—THOUGHT distinction in American English: the functional load of these distinctions is extremely low, as evidenced by the fact that the merger does not impede communication (but note that this merger would be very unlikely to happen in a non-rhotic accent <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English> although there are non-rhotic accents with {o—Q}/Ox—Awe/LOT—THOUGHT merger.) If I were a native speaker of a merged accent I wouldn't hesitate to write the merger product with {o}/Ox (as being the simplest letter of the three), but NORTH—FORCE (which also have merged for most speakers) with {Qr}/Awe+Roe. For those who anyway want to keep the distinction in writing there is a simple rule of thumb based on the Orthodox spelling:
1. {o} / Ox / [ɒ] / LOT
Practically always written with _o_ only, i.e. not followed by an _u/w_.
2. {Q} / Awe / [ɔ] / THOUGHT
Practically always written with one of
- _a/o_ followed by _u/w/ugh_,
- _a_ followed by _ll_,
- _a_ following _w/qu_,
except for CLOTH words, but that distinction is practically obsolete, so it makes sense to just use {o} in those words.
3. {A} / Ah / [ɑ] / PALM
Always written with _a_ except for those cases (_all, wa_) which fall under #2.
You may want to look up words at <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/> it uses phonetic symbols but they should be pretty intuitive for someone used to QS, as in you will pretty soon learn them by osmosis through comparison with the Orthodox spelling — although their transcription will use [ɪ] in many cases where QS uses {v}/Utter and Orthodox uses _e/i/y_! —, and I have included the relevant symbols in square brackets in the list above and in the latest version of my transcription key spreadsheet (which hopefully has come through!)
John Cowan
On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 4:08 PM BP Jonsson <bpjonsson@...> wrote:
The same is true of the loss of the {o—A—Q}/Ox—Ah—Awe/LOT—PALM—THOUGHT distinction in American English
*Some* accents of American English. Most people in the Northeast and the South, and speakers of African American English nationwide, have THOUGHT=CLOTH distinct from LOT=PALM, whether they are rhotic or non-rhotic. That's probably half the population: it's just that they aren't on TV that much.
For Western Americans and Canadians who want to learn to make/hear this distinction for whatever reason, the "Awwww!" of sympathy belongs to the first group, the "Ahhhh!" of relief to the second, and even people with the merger don't conflate these.
BP Jonsson
Den tors 8 sep. 2022 22:43John Cowan <cowan@...> skrev:
On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 4:08 PM BP Jonsson <bpjonsson@...> wrote:The same is true of the loss of the {o—A—Q}/Ox—Ah—Awe/LOT—PALM—THOUGHT distinction in American English*Some* accents of American English. Most people in the Northeast and the South, and speakers of African American English nationwide, have THOUGHT=CLOTH distinct from LOT=PALM, whether they are rhotic or non-rhotic. That's probably half the population: it's just that they aren't on TV that much.
I know. I was only trying to simplify what was threatening to become too technical already — perhaps simplifying too much. I hereby ask anybody who was offended by this for foregiveness!
But just so that I understand you correctly: are there accents with LOT=START=PALM? That's not really a low-load distinction being lost, as there must be plenty of LOT—START minimal pairs.
Also: wouldn't a speaker of a LOT=THOUGHT=PALM accent be able to learn [ɔ] by de-rhotacizing their NORTH vowel? Maybe that is harder than it sounds.
FWIW my xenolect effectively has THOUGHT=PALM=LOT since my native Swedish accent only has an [o] and a phoneme which varies between [ɑ] and [ɒ] in the non-high back area, and I feel safest to reserve the former for GOAT (which I don't always manage to diphthongize.)
For Western Americans and Canadians who want to learn to make/hear this distinction for whatever reason, the "Awwww!" of sympathy belongs to the first group, the "Ahhhh!" of relief to the second, and even people with the merger don't conflate these.
Nathan Galt
On Fri, Sep 9, 2022, at 4:13 AM, BP Jonsson wrote:
Also: wouldn't a speaker of a LOT=THOUGHT=PALM accent be able to learn [ɔ] by de-rhotacizing their NORTH vowel? Maybe that is harder than it sounds.
This sounds theoretically possible, in that there are credible reports of monolingual English speakers learning to pronounce ᄇ when it's at the beginning of a syllable by being told "it's the (unaspirated) 'p' of 'spin'". It still takes a lot of training, and isn't mastered easily.
For me, "lot" and "thought" very obviously use the same vowel. "palm" uses a different one, but for the life of me I wouldn't be able to point to any vowel other than /ɑ/ that it should be.
"the vowel sound of 'or', but without the R sound" strikes me as difficult/unhelpful as the Korean example I gave above, although perhaps that's the best anyone can do.
Dear friends
I am conflicted by all these arguments. It seems to me that we are missing an important point. QS is supposed to be a phonetic script - this means that regional accents are celebrated not forced to conform to a standard.
OK, so it is a good thing to have a certain number of rules to aid universal comprehension. I do go along with using “row” wherever an ‘r’ appears in conventional script. As to “awe” and “ox” I use them both as that is the way I speak (south of England English).
I was a member of the original writing circle with Kingsley Read and we had occasional letters circulated from Australia, New Zealand and the US, as well as a regular from Northern Ireland, and I found that if I read them in the accent of the country, I had little or no issue with understanding them and this made for a more realistic correspondence.
Let’s celebrate difference folks.
Best regards
Moira
John Cowan
On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 11:07 AM Moira O'Brien <groupsio@...> wrote:
I am conflicted by all these arguments. It seems to me that we are missing an important point. QS is supposed to be a phonetic script - this means that regional accents are celebrated not forced to conform to a standard.
Up to a point, Minister. There are thousands of regional accents of English, L1 and L2 together, and nobody can know them all. There is a story from the early days of internationalization, when a tractor company replaced the S and F indications on their throttles with pictures of a tortoise and a hare. When the new design went into production, the company started to get letters from Africa saying things like "Why have you replaced the perfectly clear S(low) and F(ast) letters on your throttles with these meaningless markings?"
In a world of print (electronic or paper), no orthography becomes generally accepted unless it comes with more or less fixed spellings (the case of American English is specialized; basically all of Webster's spellings were in use in Britain in his time, though they were not the majority use).
OK, so it is a good thing to have a certain number of rules to aid universal comprehension. I do go along with using “row” wherever an ‘r’ appears in conventional script. As to “awe” and “ox” I use them both as that is the way I speak (south of England English).
It's easy for me to sort Ah and Ox by traditional orthography, and for me Awe is distinct, so no issue there. But it must seem arbitrary and un-phonetic to people in Australia or the U.S. who distinguish the pronunciations of "can", the noun, and "can", the verb, that in QS they are spelled the same way for lack of an extra letter. (I understand that Tasmanians tend to be mocked because they pronounce "mad", "sad", "glad", and "bad" with the "wrong" short A from the perspective of other Australians.)_,_._,_
Brad Neil
If I were a native speaker of a merged accent I wouldn't hesitate to write the merger product with {o}/Ox (as being the simplest letter of the three),As a speaker of a non-merged accent: please don't do that. That would be like writing If wherever Et is supposed to be, or Oy in place of Owe (for a humorous analogy, think Officer Crabtree from 'Allo 'Allo). For any non-private writing, my advice has always been to use Ah when in doubt over Ah/Awe/Ox. That would at least reflect the merged pronunciation, making it much easier to read and understand for those without the merger. But, as been mentioned on this thread, there are patterns in conventional spelling which can be used to discern these letters fairly reliably, for anyone who wants to get as close to 'standard' spellings as possible.
but NORTH—FORCE (which also have merged for most speakers) with {Qr}/Awe+RoeThis is indeed standard. Note that this means some users must consider Awe+Roe to be a special combination with a different sound, as is already the case for Eight+Roe and Utter+Roe in most accents.
"the vowel sound of 'or', but without the R sound" strikes me as difficult/unhelpful as the Korean example I gave above, although perhaps that's the best anyone can do.I once tried to teach an American friend of mine to say the 'awe' sound by that method, which didn't work. The Korean analogy is interesting, as trying to understand the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stop consonants breaks my brain.
But it must seem arbitrary and un-phonetic to people in Australia or the U.S. who distinguish the pronunciations of "can", the noun, and "can", the verb, that in QS they are spelled the same way for lack of an extra letter.I haven't heard of a difference in those words in Tasmania specifically, but as a Victorian I can say the lad-bad split is prevalent here too. It was the least of my initial difficulties with learning QS, though, as I was already aware that it's just a local oddity with the length of that vowel in some contexts. Somewhat more difficult was remembering to spell words like 'gold' with Oak instead of Ox, 'salt' with Awe instead of Ox and 'pool' with Ooze instead of Foot (which also lacks the long form that would be needed here if I were to be totally phonetic). The celery-salary merger, on the other hand, is something people from around here do get mocked for in my experience :-)
I agree your points, John: there are a few concessions all of us can make to bring our QS spelling closer to some kind of middle-ground, which makes communication much smoother for everyone. Spelling precisely as we pronounce might work for strict RP or General American accents, since those are so prevalent in the media internationally, but for most other accents this will result in spellings that are indecipherable to the majority.
Let’s celebrate difference folks.I also agree with this sentiment, in one sense: it is all too easy to treat certain pronunciations/QS spellings as sacred, but ultimately we must remember no one is 'right' or 'wrong' -- as long as they can understand others and be understood.
John Cowan
On Wed, Sep 14, 2022 at 1:12 AM Brad Neil via groups.io <friedorange79=yahoo.com.au@groups.io> wrote:
As a speaker of a non-merged accent: please don't do that. That would be like writing If wherever Et is supposed to be,
As Southern Americans do, where "pin" and "pen" are merged in favor of "pin", so there are "ink pins" or "writing pins" as well as "safety pins", "straight pins", etc. The same is true in parts of the Midlands and in certain areas of the West settled by Southerners. A general merger (not just before nasals) used to be the case in Ireland, but is now confined to the South and the South-West regions.
For any non-private writing, my advice has always been to use Ah when in doubt over Ah/Awe/Ox. That would at least reflect the merged pronunciation,
In the Western (generally speaking) U.S., yes. But throughout Canada the merger is in favor of Ox, and in Eastern Massachusetts Awe and Ox are both Ox, but Ah is unmerged (therefore no "father-bother" rhyme, which is otherwise pervasive in North America). As Hofstadter's Generalized Law says, "It's always more complicated than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Generalized Law into account."
but NORTH—FORCE (which also have merged for most speakers) with {Qr}/Awe+RoeThis is indeed standard. Note that this means some users must consider Awe+Roe to be a special combination with a different sound, as is already the case for Eight+Roe and Utter+Roe in most accents.
Ireland, Scotland, and parts of the Caribbean (as well as spots in the U.S.) distinguish between NORTH and FORCE, and people who do should probably use Owe-Roe and Awe-Roe respectively, which represent the original 14C pronunciation, even if their own pronunciation has drifted from that.