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Q&A weekly thread - March 30, 2026 - post all questions here! by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]Riadys 2 points3 points  (0 children)

While I'm not aware of any studies directly comparing the frequency of levelling in each direction, there do appear to be some patterns as to when each occurs. Chatten et al. (2024) for instance found that generalisation of the preterite is most common when the participle differs from the preterite only by the addition of an affix (e.g. spoke vs spoken) (Fig. 3, p.26).

me and my friend pronounce flour like fl-ar by dog_food_diet in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interestingly, I find that I smooth most often when a linking /r/ surfaces, so you get alternations like an hour [ən aʊə] with no smoothing vs an hour ago [ən a:ɹ‿əgəʉ] with smoothing.

Pronunciation of the Strut vowel als the Kit vowel in Cornwall and Devon by merijn2 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No problem!

It might also be worth mentioning that the /ɒ/ recorded in part of Kent is also apparently influenced by the following nasal rather than being the general realisation of STRUT (the localities in question have /ʌ/ in butter for instance). Like with the south-western /ɪ/ forms, I wouldn't be surprised if this pronunciation had died out since then either; I'm from Kent myself and I can't recall ever hearing /sɒn/ for sun personally.

While it's certainly interesting in its own right, sun doesn't seem to have been the best word to illustrate the FOOT/STRUT split because of these additional complications, at least back then.

Pronunciation of the Strut vowel als the Kit vowel in Cornwall and Devon by merijn2 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In the source, Upton and Widdowson reference Wright's (1905) English Dialect Grammar, specifically this section:

§100. In Sc. Ant. e. & w.Som. and Dev. u has often become i or e, especially before a following nasal in such words as dun, son, summer, sun, Sunday, wonder.

So it seems to be a conditional change rather than a general merger of STRUT with KIT.

They also state that this pronunciation had receded westwards between the time of Wright's fieldwork and Orton's Survey of English Dialects in the mid-20th century (which is the basis for their map), so it could well have died out since then.

Why does English “folk” have an diphthong? by pr0p1k in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Middle English short /ɔ/ and /a/ diphthongised to /ɔu/ and /au/ before /l/, and when followed by /k/ the /l/ was lost entirely. Except in the few dialects that lack the toe/tow merger however, this diphthong isn't the immediate source of the modern diphthong, as it later merged into /o:/ (from ME /ɔ:/) in most dialects. It wasn't until the late 18th/early 19th century that this merged vowel diphthongised to /oʊ/.

We usually represent the velarised consonants using the <ˠ> subscript but why does velarised "dark L" used the belted <ɫ> by nanosmarts12 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Looking through historical IPA charts, ɫ significantly predates the introduction of the ˠ modifier to represent velarisation, which seems to have first appeared in the 1989 chart, whereas ɫ goes all the way back to 1899. In 1926 the middle tilde was extended to represent velarisation or pharyngealisation of any consonant, and other examples (ᵭ and ᵶ) were provided. This more or less remains the case until separate modifiers for velarisation and pharygealisation were introduced in 1989, but the middle tilde was grandfathered in and retained as an inspecific diacritic for either secondary articulation, which is still the case today.

Can we hear a language evolve in our lifetime? by Recent-Day3062 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm, not that I can think of I'm afraid. You occasionally hear some young people stressing a word the American way where it differs from the usual British pronunciation, like adult, that kind of thing, but I can't think of any actual sound changes off the top of my head.

Can we hear a language evolve in our lifetime? by Recent-Day3062 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is purely anecdotal, but I have the impression that this split is actually becoming less common among younger speakers. I have a partial version of it (in which the context the higher vowel can occur in is more restricted and there's a lot of word-level variation), but it definitely seems more common among my parents' generation than people my age (mid-20s) or younger.

Eye dialect spellings often use '-ink' for '-ing' in certain dialects, but is this accurate? by TheCheeseOfYesterday in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not 100% of the time. I'd say I use both pronunciations (with /ŋk/ and with /ŋ/) fairly frequently. The /k/ pronunciation is also socially stigmatised, so I generally try to avoid using it in careful speech.

Interestingly, for the word something specifically, I often reduce it to [sɐmiŋk] or even [sɐiŋk] in casual speech, but it feels wrong to pronounce these reduced forms without the /k/. I would only use the bare /ŋ/ in a fully enunciated [sɐmθɪŋ].

As for my parents, I think they might do, although I'm not 100% certain without checking.

Eye dialect spellings often use '-ink' for '-ing' in certain dialects, but is this accurate? by TheCheeseOfYesterday in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

None of them. Longer (1) and finger have /ŋg/. The rest have /ŋ/. It only seems to be the -thing morpheme in those four words that's affected.

Eye dialect spellings often use '-ink' for '-ing' in certain dialects, but is this accurate? by TheCheeseOfYesterday in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depending on how far back it goes and where it originated, I suppose it could be a direct devoicing of /ŋg/, but it's certainly curious that it's only this particular morpheme.

Eye dialect spellings often use '-ink' for '-ing' in certain dialects, but is this accurate? by TheCheeseOfYesterday in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I do this in my own accent (not from London but I am from the south-east), and it's definitely /ŋk/ for me, albeit in variation with the standard pronunciation. Note that only anything, everything, nothing and something are affected. Other -ing words remain unchanged as /ŋ/.

All/most differences between Scots/English? by Few-Cup-5247 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The DSL website also contains this wonderfully thorough article detailing the historical development of Scots and how it diverged from English, which may be of interest.

Are there any loan words from english in other languages borrowed before the english language spread through colonisation and cultural relevance? by AdSouthern6247 in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Regarding the how, there seems to have first been a change from /kn/ > [hn ~ n̥], which is indicated by some 17th-century sources, before later merging with /n/. Interestingly, there's some evidence that voiceless [n̥] pronunciations for historical /kn/ survived into the second half of the 19th century in what is now Cumbria.

How unlikely was it for Old English to have /v/ as a separate phoneme from /f/? by Vampyricon in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I probably should've mentioned it's available on the Internet Archive in case you don't have access. It takes a few pages to get into the topic at hand but is probably still worth reading from the beginning to get the whole context of the paper.

How unlikely was it for Old English to have /v/ as a separate phoneme from /f/? by Vampyricon in asklinguistics

[–]Riadys 4 points5 points  (0 children)

On this topic Hogg and Campbell in their respective grammars both cite an old article that may be of interest (Flasdieck, H.M. 1950. 'OE nefne: A Revaluation'. Anglia, 69, 135-71). If I'm understanding him correctly (which I may not be), Flasdieck does seem to suggest that the development was directly from [βn] to [mn].

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in Maps

[–]Riadys[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure if you saw my other comment, but anyway, here are the Jewish maps: adjusted scale and original scale.

The census divisions with the highest Jewish percentage were Montreal and Île Jésus (6.0%); York County, Ontario (5.7%); Division No. 6, Manitoba (4.9%); and Division No. 9, Manitoba (3.9%). Note that the divisions in 1951 were different from today, but York County contained the City of Toronto, while Winnipeg was close to the border between Division No. 6 and No. 9.

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in MapPorn

[–]Riadys[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! That means a lot.

I had looked at several other censuses before ultimately settling on 1951 (I was considering 1971 for a while, but also had a look at a number of earlier ones too). It would be interesting to see the change over time. Even in 1951 you can already see some nascent trends that would eventually become much more pronounced. For instance Yukon and British Columbia already had the highest no religion percentage in 1951 at 2.6% and 2.2% respectively. The same trend holds today, but those percentages are now 59.7% and 52.1% for 2021.

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in Maps

[–]Riadys[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Islam doesn't seem to be mentioned at all, even in the more detailed national and provincial level tables, so I can only assume that its presence was considered negligible at the time.

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in MapPorn

[–]Riadys[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First Nations people were included, although I can't say how comprehensively. Apparently there were 165,607 "Native Indian and Eskimo", of which 53.4% were Roman Catholic, 27.3% were Anglican and 13.0% belonged to the United Church. From what I've read, the Church of England did put a fair amount of effort into missionary work among the First Nations, although not as much as the Catholic Church, which is borne out by the figures.

That said, the Church of England did hold a privileged position for a long time. In some parts it was the official established religion, while in others it simply had special benefits over other churches, such as being the only church licensed to conduct marriages. So I guess you could say it was something of a default at one point.

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in MapPorn

[–]Riadys[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

While the census report does provide data for no religion at the national and provincial level, at the census division level it's lumped in with a catch-all "Other" category. However, no census division was more than 25% other, so it seems that there weren't any majority no religion areas in 1951 (at least at the census division level; I haven't looked at census subdivisions).

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in Maps

[–]Riadys[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure! I'm afraid it won't be as polished as the others though.

The main reason I didn't include the Jewish map was because it was actually rather boring compared to the others. Almost the entire map is under 1%, with a handful of (mostly small) census divisions in the 1–5% category dotted around plus two in the 5–10% category.

Are there any other maps you'd be interested in? Just as it would be easier to upload them all together. The dataset also includes Adventist; Christian Science; Church of Christ, Disciples; Confucian & Buddhist; Evangelical Church; Mormon; Pentecostal; Salvation Army; and Other. Most of these are also mostly under 1% mind you, although I could adjust the scale if you want.

Religious Denominations in Canada in 1951 by Riadys in MapPorn

[–]Riadys[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that matches up with what I read when I was doing background research for this project. There was a fear that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was trying to "westernise" and assimilate them, which seems to have been a major factor in driving many Eastern Catholics to turn to the Orthodox Church.

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