4 ms·

I've only ever lived in North America, but I did have a good Scottish friend with whom I used to discuss linguistic differences between cultures and languages.

I've only ever lived in North America, but I did have a good Scottish friend with whom I used to discuss linguistic differences between cultures and languages. To my ear, Scottish people would pronounce the 'a' in Karl as /ɑ/; an open back unrounded vowel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_unrounded_vowel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_unrounded_vowel But I'm not sure, since in Canadian English, the 'a' in Karl would be pronounced as /ɑ/ and the one in Carol would be an open-mid front unrounded vowel (/ɛ/).

ithkuil 14y ago
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/carol http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/car... vs. http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/american/carol http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/american/ca... So probably for a brit's ear the difference is mostly in the schwa (disclaimer, I'm not a native speaker. Living in Ireland though)
- kafkaesque 14y ago
  I think what laumars was referring to was the pronunciation of the first vowel in Karl and Carol. In other words, both dialects have a schwa inserted (even in NA English), but the difference is that Scottish people do not differentiate between the 'a' in both Karl and Carol. Put differently, Scottish people pronounce Karl and Carol the same way to an English speaker (from England). What I'm saying is that to my Canadian ear, I could hear a difference between the few Scottish people I've spoken to in Canada. But come to think of it, they were probably Canadianised.
  - ithkuil 14y ago
    The thread started off about rhoticism ("[...]heavy on the R's [...]"), so I guess he reinterpreted the r+schwa as longer r. However, the key player here is not laumars, but his friend Carol :-) I mean, the interesting part is that she heard her name because the epenthesis process transformed a monosyllabic word into disyllabic one, and that changed the shape of the word: kar(uh)l has the same rhythm as carol, and small vowel quality differences are probably less important that the rhythm when the word gets parsed by the brain.

ithkuil 14y ago

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/carol http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/car... vs. http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/american/carol http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/american/ca... So probably for a brit's ear the difference is mostly in the schwa (disclaimer, I'm not a native speaker. Living in Ireland though)

kafkaesque 14y ago
I think what laumars was referring to was the pronunciation of the first vowel in Karl and Carol. In other words, both dialects have a schwa inserted (even in NA English), but the difference is that Scottish people do not differentiate between the 'a' in both Karl and Carol. Put differently, Scottish people pronounce Karl and Carol the same way to an English speaker (from England). What I'm saying is that to my Canadian ear, I could hear a difference between the few Scottish people I've spoken to in Canada. But come to think of it, they were probably Canadianised.
- ithkuil 14y ago
  The thread started off about rhoticism ("[...]heavy on the R's [...]"), so I guess he reinterpreted the r+schwa as longer r. However, the key player here is not laumars, but his friend Carol :-) I mean, the interesting part is that she heard her name because the epenthesis process transformed a monosyllabic word into disyllabic one, and that changed the shape of the word: kar(uh)l has the same rhythm as carol, and small vowel quality differences are probably less important that the rhythm when the word gets parsed by the brain.