Talk:English phonemes

This will be a list of English phonemes, with example words to show the different spelling manifestations. The accents will be useful to some learners, and they can be ignored by all. The numbers are those used in my Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Ro Thorpe 19:39, 9 November 2007 (CST)

i before e

Don't forget "i before e, except after p"! Hayford Peirce 14:18, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Weird... Ro Thorpe 15:22, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Heihei....Hayford Peirce 16:23, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Sorry, couldn't resist 'pierce'... Ro Thorpe 16:44, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Well, I know, that's why it put it in there!Hayford Peirce 16:52, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Omissions

Coverage of British pronunciation is really inadequate:

1. distinction between northern & southern a is ignored; for now I've just put a general note without trying to rearrange everything; in any case, some words depend where in the north you are
2. the diphthong /iu/ has been totally ignored; again I've contented myself with a generl note for now
3. the Scots still keep the old pronunciation of wh; I forget the IPA symbol

Peter Jackson 16:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense

The /ʊə/ section seems to be nonsense. I can't believe that even Americans pronounce pure as poor rather than pyoor. The section surely mixes up words with 2 different sounds.

While I'm about it, I've never heard of a phoneme /ks/. Looks like a grapheme to me. Peter Jackson 11:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Arrant nonsense, even, hehe! Even 'Merkins are as pee-yure as de driven snow when it comes to pure.... Hayford Peirce 15:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood the 'pure' section: there is no mention of 'poor'. The IPA should be /(j)ʊə(r)/ though, it's true. How about you write an article on phonemes & we move this one to English graphemes? It did after all start its life as an essay called 'The Sounds & their Spellings': I was mainly concerned with spelling & hence limited myself to the 2 standard pronunciations. Ro Thorpe 15:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I haven't misunderstood what's there. What the author(s) intended I don't speculate. The heading says /ʊə(r)/ but most of the words aren't said that way. Some of them are, though: those precede by j. Some of the others depend which side of the Atlantic you're on, or possibly where in the US. There are 2 different sounds so there should be 2 different sections. The question is: what is the meaning of û? Who invented this notation anyway? The articles using it don't seem to cite a source or give an explanation, though the examples enable one to work out what it means in most cases. Peter Jackson 17:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)