Talk:General American English

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the General American English article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: 90 days

Languages Low‑importance

	Language portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Linguistics Low‑importance

	Linguistics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Linguistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of linguistics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LinguisticsWikipedia:WikiProject LinguisticsTemplate:WikiProject LinguisticsLinguistics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

English Language Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject English Language, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to the English language on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.English LanguageWikipedia:WikiProject English LanguageTemplate:WikiProject English LanguageEnglish Language articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

It is requested that one or more audio files be included in this article to improve its quality.
Please see Wikipedia:Requested recordings for more on this request.

Map needed

It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.
Wikipedians in the United States may be able to help!

ö̞[edit]

According to the article "History of the International Phonetic Alphabet" (Summary section), ö was replaced by ɵ in 1932. So in the vowels section, /ö̞/ is outdated and we should replace it with ɵ with a half-plus underneath?Serios3723 (talk) 11:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't quite work that way. Before 1932, there was no symbol that represented the vowel position that ⟨ɵ⟩ now represents. So diacritics were necessary. Thus we have pre-1932 works that use ⟨ö⟩ to represent sounds that post-1932 works would use ⟨ɵ⟩ for. Now that we have ⟨ɵ⟩, greater precision in phonetic transcription is possible and ⟨ö⟩ can be used to indicate a vowel position that is somewhere between cardinal [o] and [ɵ]. There's even a vowel chart that shows the exact position for the diphthong in words like row, showing that transcribing this vowel as [ö̞ʊ] is accurate. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:29, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Understood, it's not outdated, thanks! Serios3723 (talk) 11:55, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Centralisation of /ɛ/[edit]

A lot of Americans pronounce /ɛ/ something between [ɛ] and [ɜ], such that dress sounds a bit like druss. I think this tendency is strongest in female speakers, but not necessarily restricted to them. Is this a regional thing or is it part of General American? 77.191.169.174 (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This tends to be regional at this point, associated with the South, the Midland, and the emerging accent of California. Wolfdog (talk) 11:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Living down to the invidious stereotype[edit]

Can I just acknowledge how darkly humorous it is to have the General American article's current first speech example, from a Caucasian male, be that of a white man justifying torture? 'Couldn't be more on the nose. Won't somebody think of the henchmen! Representation is so important, and accurate representation… is accurate? Jesus Christ. To the extent this is your "normal reference material", the vibe nearly matches that of a German textbook maths problem, 1944 edition. I don't know that I agree with the Marxist trope-cum-slogan of "Late stage capitalism!", but this is late stage something. Flippin' 'eck! Four Phúc Sake. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 16:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this worth responding to, but neither that short clip nor the full interview [1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b007w3c5 justifies torture. I find it hard to believe Matt Damon has ever done so. You might need to understand something about American politics circa 2007 to have the proper context. CAVincent (talk) 18:17, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this is worth responding to either, but oh, yeah, sure, I'm just such a stranger and I just don't understand "the culture" enough, and if only I did, then of course I'd know how Hollywood royalty justifying torture isn't justifying torture at all, at all. History will not be kind, and sooner than ye think. I mean, sure, leave this in the article. I'm not going to fight you over it. "Never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake." Late stage indeed. Enjoy yourself! 👍 —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 21:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I'm calling it: One day soon, academic papers will be published, possibly in Indian English, correlating the pervasive politicisation and political devolution of Wikipedia with the decline of the empire of you-know-what. 'Round the decay of that colossal wreck… this too shall pass.

ɚ[edit]

@Wolfdog: Who analyzes [ɚ] as its own phoneme rather than /ər/? Nardog (talk) 15:41, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any off the top of my head, but my main instinct was to make the "Consonant phonemes in General American" and "Vowel phonemes in General American" use symbols that are consistent throughout the whole page. I'd be happy to remove <ɚ> from the Vowel phonemes if you think it's not well-supported. However, I was moments away from turning all /r/s into inverted /ɹ/s, to match the symbol in the Consonant phonemes chart. Is that cool with you? (That would mean /ər/ becomes /əɹ/ of course.) Wolfdog (talk) 15:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, not until it is demonstrated that "/ɹ/" is a more common phonemicization in the literature. Nardog (talk) 15:51, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So then let's do the opposite: the <ɹ> on the Consonant phonemes should be changed to <r>. Sounds good? (My goal here is consistency. The page is a bit nightmarish in this regard.) Wolfdog (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. Yes, let's. It's not like there's one predominant realization of /r/ within GA anyway...! Nardog (talk) 16:38, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]