[B-Greek] ETA/HTA and Southern Hemisphere English
Chet A. Creider
creider at uwo.ca
Mon Jul 17 08:37:51 EDT 2006
There is just one detail which is missing from previous discussions:
front vowels are raised in Australian, New Zealand and southern African
dialects of English (relative to the values found in other dialects). An
extreme example of this is found in New Zealand where, e.g., "chair"
and "cheer" are pronounced identically, i.e. as [tSI@] where [tS] is
[t] plus [S] 'esh' (the same 'ch' sound found in most English dialects),
[I] is the vowel in 'cheer' or 'fear' (sometimes called 'open o') and
[@] is schwa. I don't think 'chair' and 'cheer' are pronounced
identically in most Australian dialects, but the onset vowel is quite
high and the schwa not very pronounced. Thus I think Ward's choice
of example word for eta was excellent for Australian English. Perhaps
as good as can be found. Since his book is widely used outside Australia,
he might want to consider giving examples for other dialects of English
in future editions.
Chet Creider
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