Talk:2907: Schwa - Revision history

Slashme: not ZA

2026-02-09T07:55:41Z

not ZA

RadiantRainwing at 17:28, 31 December 2025

2025-12-31T17:28:55Z

RadiantRainwing at 17:27, 31 December 2025

2025-12-31T17:27:35Z

172.71.178.219 at 18:00, 23 March 2024

2024-03-23T18:00:34Z

NiceGuy1 at 04:57, 23 March 2024

2024-03-23T04:57:47Z

NiceGuy1 at 04:56, 23 March 2024

2024-03-23T04:56:12Z

NiceGuy1 at 04:37, 23 March 2024

2024-03-23T04:37:51Z

172.69.214.39 at 16:28, 21 March 2024

2024-03-21T16:28:29Z

172.69.214.39 at 16:26, 21 March 2024

2024-03-21T16:26:41Z

172.69.214.39 at 16:25, 21 March 2024

2024-03-21T16:25:37Z

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 In what crazy dialect do these all use the same 1 vowel? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.73|172.68.210.73]] 22:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 :I can think of several. I was immediately reminded of Lucy Porter's Hull accent ([https://www.google.com/search?q=hull+accent+oh+no some examples, including videos/audio, here]), but I can also think of New Zealand (more 'i'ish vowels, at least stereotypically), South African (down a couple of tones from that), and a number of state-side accents that ''conceivably'' are what Randall's drawing upon. [...as ninjaed, below, by 172.71.166.190 at 22:30]
 :My own accent (when given its full reign) actually tends to be consonant-light ("o'er" for "over", such that my vowels tend to be ''two or three'' separate tones in a row), so it doesn't work so well. But if I shift my focus to try to impersonate people from ten miles to the north (or a dozen or so miles east) from where I grew up then I can actually get quite close to 'perfect monovowelism' (still suppressing the consonants!). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.139|172.69.79.139]] 22:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 :All of them? I had to read the explanation to get what constitutes a schwa, but then I read the comic again, and yeah, they're all roughly the same sound, in the average North American accent anyway. Only exception is the word "A", which people might often pronounce like the letter "A", which of course isn't a schwa, :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

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 --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.190|172.71.166.190]] 22:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 :I too, living in the Pacific Northwest of the US, immediately saw all the vowels the same. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 00:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
-::Same here, I'm from western Washington State, and these vowels sound the exact same to me.
+::Same here, I'm from western Washington State, and these vowels sound the exact same to me. [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 17:28, 31 December 2025 (UTC)
 I didn't think it was considered schwa when stressed as in "up" and "love". But my dictionary has a schwa in its pronunciation guide for both, so I guess I was wrong. But this basically means the usual "short U" pronunciation is schwa. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

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 --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.190|172.71.166.190]] 22:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 :I too, living in the Pacific Northwest of the US, immediately saw all the vowels the same. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 00:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 I didn't think it was considered schwa when stressed as in "up" and "love". But my dictionary has a schwa in its pronunciation guide for both, so I guess I was wrong. But this basically means the usual "short U" pronunciation is schwa. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

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 ::'Round these 'ere parts, you'd never say "A"-to-rhyme-with-"Hay" (except to stress "that isn't just ''a(y)'' good song but ''the(e)'' best song ever!", e.g.). Still confused, me, though when at my first ever French class at school, the teacher (with not far off the local accent) told us that 'un' and 'une' were "the words for 'uh'...". Which only became clear when she clarified "...like 'uh book', 'uh table', 'uh window'...". This was actually how we all spoke. (More or less... Ah din't spake quart ser m'tch lahk dat, wot wi' mi mam'n'dad bofe bin frum a cupla tarns ovver, f'witch ah gut uh rep f'beyin "posch". Ur mebbe 'twuz cuz mi mam whir uh titch'r, ser ah gut lurnt t' spake proppah?) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.3|172.71.242.3]] 17:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 ::: In my experience, A-as-hay is PRIMARILY used for emphasis like that, but it does pop up in normal use too. I'd say outside of emphasis it might be 70/30%? For example, my natural instinct and inclination would lead me to usually do so here for "A truck" (dunno why, maybe since it's the first word in the sentence?). This is entirely instinct, I can't think of what the underlying reasons are, but I AM sure I have a subconscious set of rules for it. Problem with it being my mother tongue, I grew up with the language, so there are things I know that I don't KNOW I know. :) (Like, I once saw someone declare how adjectives have an order, and native speakers just KNOW it. "Big red truck" is right but "Red big truck" sounds wrong, he declared like 15 kinds of adjectives and their order, it was weird how right it was). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 Personally I pronounce those pretty much all the same (I live in Boston like Randall but don't have an actual Boston accent)

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 :"Pron''ou''nciation"! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.161|172.69.43.161]] 04:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC) ;) <!-- j/k, of course. I do normally spell that word in line with how I actually pronunce it... :p -->
 <!-- Okay, I was about to reply how, no, the O gets dropped when adding the "iation". :) That should probably not be a comment, LOL! - NiceGuy1 -->
-:I know, right? I think comments are also longer because we have to '''''describe''''' and '''''explain''''' the sounds and pronunciations we mean. Then as this discussion proves, not all pronunciations are as universal as we thought, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
+:I know, right? I think comments are also longer because we have to '''''describe''''' and '''''explain''''' the sounds and pronunciations we mean, instead of just letting people hear what we mean. Then as this discussion proves, not all pronunciations are as universal as we thought, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:56, 23 March 2024
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	I like how this is one of the most controversial comics in recent memory and it's about pronunciation. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page\|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page\|talk]]) 18:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)		I like how this is one of the most controversial comics in recent memory and it's about pronunciation. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page\|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page\|talk]]) 18:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
	:"Pron''ou''nciation"! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.161\|172.69.43.161]] 04:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC) ;) <!-- j/k, of course. I do normally spell that word in line with how I actually pronunce it... :p -->		:"Pron''ou''nciation"! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.161\|172.69.43.161]] 04:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC) ;) <!-- j/k, of course. I do normally spell that word in line with how I actually pronunce it... :p -->
		+	<!-- Okay, I was about to reply how, no, the O gets dropped when adding the "iation". :) That should probably not be a comment, LOL! - NiceGuy1 -->
		+	:I know, right? I think comments are also longer because we have to '''''describe''''' and '''''explain''''' the sounds and pronunciations we mean. Then as this discussion proves, not all pronunciations are as universal as we thought, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1\|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1\|talk]]) 04:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

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 :Some dialects split the vowel at the end of "comma" from the vowel in "strut," but most North American dialects don't. So in pronouncing dictionaries, you will sometimes see the strut vowel written ʌ and the comma vowel written ə even though they might be exactly the same in your accent. In vowels that split comma and strut, schwa is rarely stressed, but that's not a rule. This is sometimes confused by American teachers, who try to explain why they see two different symbols for the same sound. But they really are different sounds, and Americans just don't use /ʌ/ at all. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 ::Plus, this "schwa is never stressed" mnemonic doesn't even make perfect predictions for dialects without the merger. I've heard that in ''undone'' /ʌnˈdʌn/, the unstressed vowel doesn't go to schwa. In the end, the IPA wasn't created just for English, and it only defines [ə] as a mid central vowel, not an unstressed one. Reduced vowels may often mid-centralize, but nothing says a language can't stress mid central vowels at other times, just like any other vowel quality can be stressed or unstressed. <span style="background:#0064de;font-size:12px;padding:4px 12px;border-radius:8px;">[[User talk:AgentMuffin|<span style="color:#f0faff;">~AgentMuffin</span>]]</span> 21:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
-::As in science in general, there is no "true" description of language, but only models that are more or less useful. Conceptualizing the STRUT vowel as /ʌ/ or as stressed schwa are two possible models. The latter is more popular in writing about US English, and maybe less obvious in some other Englishes. But in the end, in the context of this cartoon, it's self-defeating (if we are being pedantic, which should be allowed in the xkcd universe), because even if we're categorizing them as the stressed and unstressed versions of the same vowel, they're sufficiently different that non-native speakers will still have to learn how to pronounce both of them, especially if their native language doesn't have word stress. [Quinn C, linguist]
+::As in science in general, there is no "true" description of language, but only models that are more or less useful. Conceptualizing the STRUT vowel as /ʌ/ or as stressed schwa are two possible models. The latter is more popular in writing about US English, and maybe less obvious in some other Englishes. But in the end, in the context of this cartoon, it's self-defeating (if we are being pedantic, which should be allowed in the xkcd universe), because even if we're categorizing them as the stressed and unstressed versions of the same vowel, they're sufficiently different that non-native speakers will still have to learn how to pronounce both of them, especially if their native language doesn't have word stress. [Quinn C, linguist] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.214.39|172.69.214.39]] 16:28, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 This all works in a generically american accent, except for the i vowel in onion, which cannot be schwa-ified in any english accent I've ever heard. [[Special:Contributions/