Ye olde “ei” variance in pronunciation is because modern pronunciation of some words has change from olden times. Here be some weird Phonemic Transcription Analysis PTA: the vocalic digraph “ ei” is the phonemic profile ofvthe diphthongized “ long” vowel A => /e-i/ where “ i” is the tertiary form of I =/e:/ “ long “E” as in litre or pizza. So the sound of “ ei” would consistently be / e-e:/= “ long” A. In the phonemic profiles of the diphthongized vowels A /e-e:/ I/a-e:/ O/o-u:/ the base sound is a Continental value with the off-glide a long form of the nondiphthongized vowels E U. It’s from these that we derive the phonemic profiles of the English diphthjngs “ ow” and “ oy” by swapping the off-glides of the diphthingized vowels as such: “ ow” => I/a-e:/ => /a-u:/ “Oy”=> O/o-u;/ => /o-e:/. You might then consider A /e-e:/ => /e-u:/. There is no American equivalent of that but if you think that is the way the British pronounce “ long”O => /e-u:/ while Americsns pronounce it O => / o-u:/. Sorry but this is just scratching the surface of PTA. This forms the basis for why “gh” is silent in through or dough but has an /f/ sound in cough and enough. A deeper anaysis then explains why if you think you know why this happens but why “ gh” is silent in thought or bought. Even deeper analysis explains umlaut modification as in begin/began/ begun or swim/swam/swum so the vowel pattern I A U which is the same for ablaut reduplication which looks non alphabetic but on a deeper levelnusing phinemic profiles to actually be alphabetic. In a sense PTA takes a X ray of the process. As for words like perceive or deceive where “ ei” has an “ ee”/e:/ sound and in neighbour and weigh it has an “ ay” = A /e-i/ = /e-e:/ sound it’s just a change in modern pronunciation. Before I suspect receive sounded like / ree-sayv/ and perceive sounded like /pur-sayv/ and deceive sounded like /duh-sayv/ or /dee-sayv/. They were following the rule then but over time the pronunciation changed so it is now inconsistent but in some accents it remains unchanged . I’ve tried to cut some corners to make this as simple and clear as possible. The other things need much more explanation with phonemic equations that illustrate the interaction of phonemes with adjacent syllables in some way like rendaku in Japanese morphophonology of consonant pairs but here with vowels. Later analysis explains pseudo vocalic digraphs with syllabic consonants like matres lectionis to show how pronunciation is encoded in English spelling.But this is enough for now. Hey this was my job more or less for 34 years in comparative linguistics. It does tend to make your head spin.
In my opinion, Adele doesn't just sound American; she sounds African American. The first time I heard an Adele song was in a movie theater, when I heard her theme to the James Bond movie "Skyfall". (I loved both the song and the movie, by the way.) I knew nothing about Adele at that time, and I pictured her as a southern American black woman based on her singing style. When I saw a photo of her some time after that, I was rather surprised. I guessed that the mismatch between my perception and her actual ethnicity was because she had been influenced by American R&B singers.
I mean no disrespect about this because I know this is after all a podcast about the English language, but sometimes it'd be really cool if you also related some of these concepts to other languages. It'd be supremely helpful to understanding why and how singers loose their accents if you considered if it also happens in other languages.
@@DCII I would guess that you're probably thinking of different accents within the same language, like how people from Spain, Mexico, and Chile would all speak Spanish with distinct accents. But your post made me think of something regarding singing and accents across languages: I remember Jackie Chan appearing on a talk show years ago. As he was speaking to the host in English, he understandably had a strong Chinese accent. But then he mentioned that country music had helped him to learn English, and he sang a few lines from a popular country song in a near-perfect southern US accent. So singing might be a way to help non-native speakers of a language to learn something closer to a native accent.
@@Paul71H Yes that's what I'm referring to. Knowing the similarities and differences between how different languages work and related to each other (especially languages with different origins) would greatly improve understanding of how humanity works in general. I believe it too be absolutely true that singing helps to learn a new language because I used to listen to the podcast Coffee Break Spanish and by far the most effective lesson was the one that they turned a couple of complex Spanish sentences into a tune with a repeating a cadence. To this day, more than 10 years later, I can both sing and say those two sentences 'perfectly'. Not to say it's all I remember, but it easily stuck the best.
could you please make videos about IPA pronunciation or phonetic transcription?
One of my pet hates is when people sing in a voice that isn't their own. I'd rather their own personality shone through.
Ye olde “ei” variance in pronunciation is because modern pronunciation of some words has change from olden times. Here be some weird Phonemic Transcription Analysis PTA: the vocalic digraph “ ei” is the phonemic profile ofvthe diphthongized “ long” vowel A => /e-i/ where “ i” is the tertiary form of
I =/e:/ “ long “E” as in litre or pizza. So the sound of “ ei” would consistently be / e-e:/= “ long” A. In the phonemic profiles of the diphthongized vowels A /e-e:/ I/a-e:/ O/o-u:/ the base sound is a Continental value with the off-glide a long form of the nondiphthongized vowels E U. It’s from these that we derive the phonemic profiles of the English diphthjngs “ ow” and “ oy” by swapping the off-glides of the diphthingized vowels as such:
“ ow” => I/a-e:/ => /a-u:/ “Oy”=> O/o-u;/ => /o-e:/. You might then consider A /e-e:/ => /e-u:/. There is no American equivalent of that but if you think that is the way the British pronounce “ long”O => /e-u:/ while
Americsns pronounce it O => / o-u:/. Sorry but this is just scratching the surface of PTA. This forms the basis for why “gh” is silent in through or dough but has an /f/ sound in cough and enough. A deeper anaysis then explains why if you think you know why this happens but why “ gh” is silent in thought or bought. Even deeper analysis explains umlaut modification as in begin/began/ begun or swim/swam/swum so the vowel pattern I A U which is the same for ablaut reduplication which looks non alphabetic but on a deeper levelnusing phinemic profiles to actually be alphabetic. In a sense PTA takes a X ray of the process. As for words like perceive or deceive where “ ei” has an “ ee”/e:/ sound and in neighbour and weigh it has an “ ay” = A /e-i/ = /e-e:/ sound it’s just a change in modern pronunciation. Before I suspect receive sounded like / ree-sayv/ and perceive sounded like /pur-sayv/ and deceive sounded like /duh-sayv/ or /dee-sayv/. They were following the rule then but over time the pronunciation changed so it is now inconsistent but in some accents it remains unchanged . I’ve tried to cut some corners to make this as simple and clear as possible. The other things need much more explanation with phonemic equations that illustrate the interaction of phonemes with adjacent syllables in some way like rendaku in Japanese morphophonology of consonant pairs but here with vowels. Later analysis explains pseudo vocalic digraphs with syllabic consonants like matres lectionis to show how pronunciation is encoded in English spelling.But this is enough for now. Hey this was my job more or less for 34 years in comparative linguistics. It does tend to make your head spin.
Say what? "Monothongization" ... I'm not even going to try to say that slow once. 😆
I had to record that part more than once to get it right!
In my opinion, Adele doesn't just sound American; she sounds African American. The first time I heard an Adele song was in a movie theater, when I heard her theme to the James Bond movie "Skyfall". (I loved both the song and the movie, by the way.) I knew nothing about Adele at that time, and I pictured her as a southern American black woman based on her singing style. When I saw a photo of her some time after that, I was rather surprised. I guessed that the mismatch between my perception and her actual ethnicity was because she had been influenced by American R&B singers.
How interesting!
I mean no disrespect about this because I know this is after all a podcast about the English language, but sometimes it'd be really cool if you also related some of these concepts to other languages. It'd be supremely helpful to understanding why and how singers loose their accents if you considered if it also happens in other languages.
@@DCII I would guess that you're probably thinking of different accents within the same language, like how people from Spain, Mexico, and Chile would all speak Spanish with distinct accents.
But your post made me think of something regarding singing and accents across languages: I remember Jackie Chan appearing on a talk show years ago. As he was speaking to the host in English, he understandably had a strong Chinese accent. But then he mentioned that country music had helped him to learn English, and he sang a few lines from a popular country song in a near-perfect southern US accent. So singing might be a way to help non-native speakers of a language to learn something closer to a native accent.
@@Paul71H Yes that's what I'm referring to. Knowing the similarities and differences between how different languages work and related to each other (especially languages with different origins) would greatly improve understanding of how humanity works in general.
I believe it too be absolutely true that singing helps to learn a new language because I used to listen to the podcast Coffee Break Spanish and by far the most effective lesson was the one that they turned a couple of complex Spanish sentences into a tune with a repeating a cadence. To this day, more than 10 years later, I can both sing and say those two sentences 'perfectly'. Not to say it's all I remember, but it easily stuck the best.
@@Paul71H Oops didn't realize this was on your response thread. Sorry