Talk:/æ/ raising

The usual convention is that linguistic example material should be italicized, not the prose commenting on it. The main table currently uses the opposite convention. Any opposition to switching this around? --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 13:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

This article sure could use some recorded examples! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.12.42.139 (talk) 09:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Southern american is highly stigmatized along with african american vernacular, so for status the raising is working more often than for natural or random totally shifts--this raising not being as high as great lakes thats more near KIT vowel. rather, southern is at /ei/ or /e/ near merging or shoving out.

So social side should be in the article. Same for why backing was lost in new england, as it likely was seen rural, but this reasearch i think is harder found.Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 18:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

1. The sound files for untensed language and thank you here seem to feature over-correction - the inherent effect of a velar nasal coda is taken out, such that /æŋg/ and /æŋk/ are something like [æˑ.ⁿg] and [æˑ.ⁿk], which could leave speakers of varieties without any unpredictably distinct /æ/+/ŋ/ allophone(much of the eastern US + most places outside North America as far as I'm aware), as well as Danes a bit confused.
2. Since the varieties which do have special shifts before /ŋ/ or before /ŋ/ and /g/ tend to be the ones which have them across the whole front vowel set, and this results in raising, not lowering diphthongs, giving /ŋ/ its own sound samples and table row at all is misleading.
3. Regardless, the transcription [eɪ], both here and on Wiktionary, is somewhat problematic, because that is the position pre-/ŋ/ tensing accents typically give to /ɛ/, while /æ/ gets [ɛɪ](or potentially lower with the Californian and Canadian shifts putting the base allophone of /æ/ at [a].) To be fair, the only potential minimal pairs involve uncommon loans, but we are talking about narrow transcriptions of a non-phonemic system. Célestine-Edelweiß (talk) 18:44, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

1. I agree that those pronunciations sound unnatural. It would probably be better if we had pronunciations from someone whose native accent didn't tense or shift /æ/ in that environment, alongside pronunciations from someone who does natively shift /æ/ before /ŋ/.

2. I might be inclined to agree that ash-tensing before eng and /g/ should be treated separately, given that other vowels shift in those environments as well, I'd have to see what different reliable sources say. Maybe this depends on dialect/accent? ie in some dialects ash-tensing before eng and/or /g/ clearly patterns with ash-tensing in other environments, while in other dialects shifting before eng and /g/ is best considered separately.

3. I'd have to see what reliable sources say when it comes to narrow IPA transcriptions. Erinius (talk) 20:53, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

1. I believe the speaker is being slow and slightly exaggerative in his articulations to make distinctions clearer, which may be affecting the surrounding consonants (I, too, notice the odd /g/ at the end of hang, though thank you sounds ok to my /æ/-unraised self, if a bit self-aware and deliberate). For any newcomer to the idea of /æ/ raising, these audio files seem, to me, "good enough!"

2. I may not understand your problem here exactly. Doesn't the chart on this very page, "/æ/ raising in North American English", already answer this problem? The only dialect that shows /æ/ raising before /ŋ/ in tandem with all environments generally is the Great Lakes dialect.

3. Looking at sources couldn't hurt, but at least phonetically [eɪ] seems about right for most Americans (here, I hear everything from [eɪ] to [e] to [ɛ] and we need to choose one for our transcription). I'm sure many Americans have a merger of /ɛŋ/ and /æŋ/, though I can't remember if literature I've seen recently confirms it. Maybe check "Bag, beg, bagel" (Freeman 2014) or "The Bag that Scott Bought" (Benson et al. 2011). Wolfdog (talk) 04:07, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

1. Here and here are some alternative recordings I've just made. I can add them in if everyone finds it preferable to no change or removal, though clipping somebody else's file feels iffy to me so we might want to get new audio for the tensed pronunciation too.

2. My problems with having separate /g/ and /ŋ/ table rows and /ŋ/ sound clips:

- The second paragraph of the lead doesn't include the closing variant in its list of tense /æ/ realizations

- New England doesn't have pre-/ŋ/ tensing but I think we'd agree only 1 column for the nasal system is ideal

- NYC's all voiced stops rule is obfuscated

- Pre-velar tensing substitutes the qualities of existing base phonemes whereas /æ/ tensing otherwise results in nuclei only comparable to other allophones

- Outside the South, conditions besides voiced velar tense only /æ/

I think there should be a footnote like, "Before voiced velars, much of the Midwest, West, and Canada approaches a merger of /æ/ and /ɛ/ with /eɪ/, and sometimes complementarily /ɪ/ with /i/. See those varieties' pages for more information."

3. I'll look through those sources and more for which particular qualities the front vowels are arriving at in different accents - California's probably the best continental bellwether. Considering how /iŋ/(or /in/) for -ing as one example is rapidly gaining among young people all over, North American English pre-velar tensing might merit its own article. Célestine-Edelweiß (talk) 23:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Adelpine: We're using a somewhat narrower transcription here (notice the use of flaps in other transcriptions nearby on the page) that correspond to the same transcription system on General American (originally, the phonology section that I moved from American English). Why do you think the audio does not represent this well? Wolfdog (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Wolfdog:: I also used a narrower transcription because I included [pʰ] even when it should be one of the pronunciations in the previous column (to avoid confusing people with little knowledge of IPA). The problems with the previous transcriptions are the use of dark l before a vowel when it should be used after them (this is the place of light l) and the use of [ɨ] confuses them more (you can see in the link that it is only used in Southeastern English).

With respect to the audio, I hear [ˈpʰlæn.ɪ̞t]. Gemini AI confirmed both vowels (computing the formants with "robust hack" in Praat, and giving them to Gemini). Greetings! Adelpine (talk) 18:06, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Americans tend to use dark L in all environments (though it is more likely to be a bit lighter in initial position), again as you can see already normalized on the American English page for all /l/s. I agree the vowel in the audio is not quite fully diphthongal though. But what's the Southeastern English link you're referring to? Wolfdog (talk) 00:12, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they mean Close central unrounded vowel, which they IPAblink'ed to, which only shows Southeastern English in the main "Occurrence" section. Erinius (talk) 00:24, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

We've had these kind of discussions already, most recently here (see the section called "[ɨ] and [ə]"). As a result, General American was edited to say Despite phonetic variation within the latter vowel, the symbol ⟨ɨ⟩ is used consistently on this page with an additional note reading Though analyses may differ, the choice to use the symbol ⟨ɨ⟩ here dates back to a tradition starting in the 1950s from linguist George L. Trager and others. See those pages. Wolfdog (talk) 02:09, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

According to commA Lexical Set, the commA vowel is /ə/ and phonetically realized as [ɘ], [ə], [ɜ], or [ɐ].

After reading should I use /ə/ or /ɪ/ and why does it seem like they're not used correctly?, I arrived at the same conclusion for /ɪ/. So, it should be denoted /ɪ/ and phonetically [i], [I], [ə], or [ɨ]. For example, in planet, I was more precise by using [ɪ̞]. In this case, it is not clear whether the vowel is reduced or whether it has the weak vowel merger. If it were the second option, I would have denoted it as I did in appropriate (it says "fusión de las vocales débiles" as it is in Spanish). Adelpine (talk) 19:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I was just trying to go for consistency here. I urge you to start a post at the General American or American English talk pages if you have specific disagreements about generally using [ɨ] as a symbol on American English-related pages. Appreciate the collegiality. Wolfdog (talk) 12:05, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Finally, I understood the use of the symbol ɨ on Wikipedia. Do not use it in place of the vowel /ɨ/ in Wiktionary, please!

With respect to continuing the discussion on other pages, I think I should learn more about the weak vowel merger beforehand. Adelpine (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Due to the initial /, the page linking breaks in any namespace besides main, and has to be prefixed with the w: tag:

/æ/ raising vs w:/æ/ raising

I think it needs to be moved to fix this issue, but I am not sure what the best name would be. Suggestions welcome. ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:15, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe we could use the characters ⟨ ⟩: ⟨æ⟩ raising - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ 04:03, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

No need, see Help:Colon trick. [[:/æ/ raising]] → /æ/ raising. Nardog (talk) 05:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Duh, don't know why I didn't think of that. Thanks for the reminder :) ~ oklopfer (💬) 05:24, 15 January 2026 (UTC)