Alderique:Inglés neozelandés

Recent changes

Hi. First of all, apologies for writing in English - I know neither enough Spanish nor Asturian (I don't speak the latter at all to be honest) to be able to write a talk page message or an edit summary in those languages.

This recent edit of mine needs to be explained.

First of all, the vowel charts. Those vowel charts: [1], [2] and [3] have been replaced with [4], [5], [6]. I did that because they former ones are based on an unreliable source (one that didn't cite any other sources and has actually been deleted from the site - see [7] and [8]) and because the way /e/, /ɵː/, /ʉː/, /ɐʉ/ and /æʊ/ were presented on them is at odds with how those vowels are described in the literature (see w:en:New Zealand English phonology and the sources cited there):

• /e/ is typically near-close [ɪ] in NZE. A close-mid realization [e] is typical of Australian English.
• /ɵː/ and /ʉː/ are normally kept distinct in NZE, as [ɵː] and [ʉː] or something similar. No source I'm aware of describes those as being merged, though they can be pretty close to each other. I don't think that the way they're presented here is an appropriate way to depict two contrasting vowels in a language (as something like [ɵ̝ː] vs [ʉ̞ː]).
• /ɐʉ/ is normally described as having a central starting point ([ɐʉ]), not a back, [ɑ]-like one.
• No source I'm aware of describes NZE /æʊ/ as a backing diphthong [æɔ], which is the Australian realization. Rather, they all say that it's either a closing one ([æʊ]) or a centering one ([æʉ], [ɛʉ], [æə], [ɛə]).

Another reason for the replacement is actually very simple - because those charts are unreliable, we should try and get them removed from Commons. I'll take care of that.

Now onto the table. I've removed */i/ from it (it's not a phoneme but a variant of /iː/ used in the least stressed syllables) and reorganized the table. Normally, the short vowels are listed first. In NZE, /e/ and /oː/ are actually close vowels (not fully close, but near-close - the latter is often more back than /ʊ/ though) and /ɛ, ɒ/ are both mid (open-mid to be more precise, though that varies somewhat). /ɐ/ and /ɐː/ are the only vowels that are open in NZE. Again, see the English article for sources.

The symbols <æe>, <ɑe>, <oe>, <æo> are needlesly complicated and there's actually no advantage in preferring them over <æɪ, ɑɪ, oɪ, æʊ>. The closeness of the second elements of the first three diphthongs varies between close-mid [e] and close [i], so there's no need to abandon the traditional transcription of <ɪ> used by e.g. Wells. Using <æɪ> and <oɪ> actually brings the transcription used here in line with how Australian English is transcribed (in AuE, what is usually transcribed /ɑe/ should be written with <ɑɪ> as well - that's another story though). Since those varieties are often confused by speakers of other varieties of English (not to mention the vast majority of non-native speakers), I don't think that we should transcribe NZE and AuE differently if there's no actual need to do so. Not to mention that <æɪ, ɑɪ, oɪ, æʊ> are more understandable for most readers because of their closeness to the usual transcription of FACE, PRICE, CHOICE and MOUTH in English (<eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ>). In fact, the transcription of the ending point of FACE as <e> and the offset of MOUTH as <o> is probably confined to NZE. I've never seen such transcriptions in the case of other dialects.

NZE /æʊ/ varies between [æʊ], [æʉ], [æə], [ɛʉ] and [ɛə]. There's no need to deviate from the usual transcription of the second element of this diphthong as <ʊ> because the ending point is actually quite variable. Kbb2 (alderique) 15:01 16 xnt 2019 (UTC)