Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 25

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August 25

Llama mama

There is a picture book with the title Llama Llama Mad at Mama. It's clearly intended to rhyme, but to my ear the rhymes don't work since my pronunciation for "Llama" is æ, but Mama is ɑ~ɒ (more like momma), according to the IPA chart for Canada (I'm not that familiar with IPA so I hope I used it right). Does Llama generally rhyme with Mama in other English dialects? Edited to add: Or, just as likely, if it is majority rhyming, which major dialects does it not rhyme in? Mingmingla (talk) 02:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand the "ae" thing. Can you name a word you would rhyme "llama" with? And by the way, in American English anyway, "mama" and "momma" are total homophones, and "llama" is a homophone of "lama". Which reminds me of an Ogden Nash short poem. (See below). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It's the vowel of cat or ash, and is called ash, after the old English Ash (letter). μηδείς (talk) 05:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

In other words, a "short a", as in bat, chat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, that, vat. Right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

They rhyme in my native dialect (Eastern New England English). --Jayron32 03:21, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

They rhyme with the /a/ of father in my US East Midlands dialect. Either /jæmə/ or /læmə/ seems hard to believe. But there is the song /bæd mæmə dʒæmə/. μηδείς (talk) 04:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

"Llama" rhymes with "mama" (both with /ɑ/) in my California English as well as in my parents' South Midland variety. I've never heard "llama" pronounced with an /æ/. Merriam-Webster says "llama" rhymes with "Brahma, comma, drama..."--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:42, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe Mingmingla is Canadian? They use a lot of /æ/'s in this sort of location (plaza, lava, Mazda). --Trovatore (talk) 05:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting that it indicates that it rhymes with "comma". I would rhyme Brahama, Drama, and Llama, and Mama, but not comma. For me the o in comma is like the o in bomb or Tom or strong. The a in Llama and mama is distinct from that. --Jayron32 05:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Could be a regional thing. To my midwestern ears, Brahma, Comma, Drama, Lama, Mama, Momma all rhyme exactly. Tom and bomb also rhyme exactly while also rhyming with the first syllable of the previous list; while strong rhymes with bong, dong, gong, kong, long, pong, song, tong, wrong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ —Preceding undated comment added 05:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, reading through Boston English, it notes that the Eastern New England accent is unique among American accents in that it distinguishes between those two vowels rigorously; so I suspect that most other people would rhyme comma and mama, though it sounds very unnatural if I try to do so myself. --Jayron32 05:42, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

To me Tom and strong do not have the same vowel at all. Do you have the cot—caught merger? --Trovatore (talk) 05:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I do, I have a hard time hearing the difference as well, even when someone who does not have the merger attempts to pronounce them differently, unless it's a really stressed difference, like the New York "coffee talk" thing. Normally, the two vowels sound the same to me and are likely in free variation in my dialect. --Jayron32 05:28, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess it's one of those things. There's a woman in my company named Dawn that people keep calling Don. I don't know any Don here and it always takes me a minute to figure out who they're talking about. --Trovatore (talk) 05:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I wonder how they would pronounce "Don". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Exactly the same as they pronounce "Dawn", I'm pretty sure. --Trovatore (talk) 05:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The same way. That's how the cot-caught merger works: the vowels in Don and Dawn are identical to speakers who have the merger in their dialect. --Jayron32 05:58, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I used to work as a receptionist at a company where a guy named Don worked, and on several occasions I told people who called for him that no one named Dawn worked for the company. μηδείς (talk) 04:07, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, in my received-pronunciation-meets-sarf-Lund'n English, Llama rhymes with 'drama' but it doesn't remotely rhyme with 'comma'. The former has an implicit 'H' sound at the end, even if it isn't actually audible most of the time, whereas the latter has an unspoken 'er' at the end, which is never even remotely audible at all. Us Londoners may tend to mumble, but we rarely mispronounce things while we are doing so. ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:25, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I've never figured out what an "unspoken 'er'" is in non-rhotic dialects. Sade confused an entire generation of American fans by saying she pronounced it shar-day; apparently shah-day and shaw-day would both have been wrong, but wrong in what way, I never figured out. --Trovatore (talk) 05:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

New England definately has the "unspoken -er" thing, as a non-rhotic accent. It is hard to explain to people with rhotic accents that the "r" sound is still there, it is just different. That is, New England still has slightly R-colored vowels in places where the full "r" exists in other dialects. People who try to fake the New England accent screw this up by replacing this with the "ah" sound, but that's not exactly correct, a born and raised New Englander can hear the difference between the words "Car" and "Ka" for example, though people imitating the accent pronounce them the same. The best analogy I can make for it is the French nasal vowels: just like a terminal "n" or "m" in French (as in words like "non" or the city "Reims") nasalizes the preceding vowel without being pronounced itself, in New England, the "r" in a word "rhotizes" the preceding vowel without being pronounced itself. In other words, you modify the very end bit of the vowel sound as if you were going to say the "r", but then don't say it. --Jayron32 05:39, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I recall seeing an interview clip of her on TV once, and she specifically said it was pronounced "shah-day", not "shar-day". That somehow the media had come up with that. Maybe they assumed she was using a non-rhotic "r", or some deal like that. Or maybe she accidentally mispronounced her own name once, and they picked up on it. Like all the 50s and 60s impressionists of Ed Sullivan who had him pronouncing "show" like "shoe", which he didn't, or if he did, it was only once. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

"Shah" and "shar" are pronounced pretty much the same by Londoners. BTW our article Sade Adu says that she was born in "Nigeria and Ireland"; a unique achievement by her mother. Alansplodge (talk) 11:21, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't rhyme in Northern Brit English. /la:ma/ and /mama/ - one is short, the other long. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The one-l lama, he's a priest / The two-l llama, he's a beast / And I would bet a silk pajama / There isn't and three-l lllama. -- Ogden Nash

Retort: "A three-l lllama is a big fire in Boston." -- source unknown

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

You're going to have to explain your punchline Bugs, I don't get it... Alansplodge (talk) 10:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

In a Boston accent, "A three-l llama" sounds like "A three alarmer". Meaning a three alarm fire. Dismas|^(talk) 10:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - I was missing both parts of the puzzle. Alansplodge (talk) 11:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Stay calmer when you want to harm a llama - call a llama farmer. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:40, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The Northern Cities shift as a vowel chart

@ Trovatore above, are you talking about the Northern cities vowel shift? I cannot imaging anyone in NA rhyming lava and Mazda with captcha in their own speech. μηδείς (talk) 18:28, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I do. I am indeed Canadian, and that's how we roll. I once heard a sports talk show host from the US and I swear, to my ears, he said "dot com" as "dat cam", to rhyme with captcha. Ah, accents. Impossible to write down coherently. Mingmingla (talk) 19:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

You did hear dat.cam to rhyme with how you yourself would have said captcha. But all the vowels of those speakers shift, not just the ah vowel, so they would actually say keeaptcha, and hence they would still not rhyme those words internally in their own dialect. See Northern cities vowel shift and chain shift. My own dialect has a shift where some ash vowels shift to short e: many, any, and, catch, am, and can (as in able) become menny, enny, end, ketch and ken, yet half, cat and can (as in tin) are unaffected. Speakers will notice this if you point it out. People with the NCVS are oblivious to what they are doing, and shift all their vowels. μηδείς (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not the NCVS. That article itself says the shift is not present in Canada. Canadians really say /lævə/ etc. (I'm not too sure what to tell you about which Canadians — I lived in Toronto, but I mostly noticed this in TV ads.) --Trovatore (talk) 19:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I assume you mean some Canadians. Are you saying they shift all ah's to ashes? Or just in some words, as I shift ash to eh in some words? (Plæza and Plaza are in free variation in my dialect, but not læva.) Can you provide a video link that demonstrates this, some Canadian on youtube talking about "hot læva", and not "hæt læva"? μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp3gj1LPIj8. It's an ad for Lavalife Voice. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It's just in some words. As I say, I noticed plaza, lava, and Mazda. And maybe pasta? Don't remember for sure. --Trovatore (talk) 20:02, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

(By the way, I wouldn't call it a shift, per se. These are words where standard English pronunciation rules might have the ash, or perhaps /eɪ/, but because we perceive them as Latinate or "foreignish" we use /ɑː/. I think the point is that the Canadians don't do that.) --Trovatore (talk) 20:30, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Pasta for sure, and drama, too. Canadian English is a weird hybrid. Medeis, I too would say "menny" for "many", "enny" for "any", but not "ketch". It could be just that I talk funny; I'm not sure how representative I am of Canadian English. Most people in my town have Chinese, Indian, or other non-English accents, so over the years, my own speech may have been thrown off a little. (for real; over 50 percent of my city are Chinese immigrants and first genereation). Mingmingla (talk) 20:37, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

As to the "hot læva" and "hæt læva", in my tongue they are quite far apart. The 'o' in hot is a lot like the noise a studio audience makes when they see something sweet on a sitcom. Mingmingla (talk) 21:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you talk funny, I sound the same, although not all Canadians have exactly the same accent. I also remember repeating (in writing) the joke "if you can walk and talk you can go to Brock" to an American from Chicago, who didn't understand why it rhymed. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Great video evidence, Trovatore. And it even has /keri/ for /kæri/! What barbarians you Canadians are compared to us conservative east coasters. If I were world dictator I would on pain of death ban bubble gum, low riders, the NCVS, and the mary/marry/merry merger. I suspect a large part of the contempt people have for Sarah Palin is due to the last two phaenomena. μηδείς (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Just on a point of order Many and any don't have the same sound as and, catch, am, and can in either RP or GA. Many and any despite their spelling typically rhyme with penny or Kenny rather than canny or Annie. If the ash sound is raised to an open e and there isn't a consequent shift of e, then I guess there may be a canny-Kenny merger, but I suspect that many and any were already pronounced with the open e sound before the merger developed. I'm curious as to whether penny rhymes with many in Medeis's dialect. Valiantis (talk) 03:11, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

So, you are saying that even Scots and RP speakers say menny and enny? Yes, I do, of course, rhyme penny and many with /ɛni/. Perhaps my /ɛm/ and /kɛtʃ/ for am and catch (whose very careful citation forms for me are /æm/ and /kætʃ/ ) are diagnostic? μηδείς (talk) 04:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

RP speakers definitely say menny (as do - as far as I can see and hear - speakers of General American). The OED - which has a short essay on the subject [1] which I very briefly summarise below - gives the standard pronunciation as "Brit. /ˈmɛni/ , U.S. /ˈmɛni/ ." Off the top of my head, I believe that people speaking standard English with one of the various Scottish accents would use the same sound in many as they do in penny (and I believe in most Scottish accents that would also be /ɛ/). In some English dialects (as distinct from standard English pronounced with a regional accent) there are forms which are pronounced /æ/ and /a/ and /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ and in actual Scots the form is /o/ or sometimes /ʌ/ and the spelling is often mony [2] to reflect this. The pronunciation with /æ/ or /a/ was the norm in the 16th C (and presumably has set the spelling) and still survives in manifold but has been in recession since then. As British and American English both tend to have /mɛni/, I would infer that this form was the norm by the 18th C. Valiantis (talk) 21:10, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting. I do say /mænɪfoɫd/, with a lax ash, although I do have the tense/lax ash split. μηδείς (talk) 22:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The Barenaked Ladies, by Cezanne

Obligatory link to the Toronto band Barenaked Ladies singing about llamas: [3]. Odd that I grew up in Buffalo, which is very close to Toronto, yet llama and mama rhyme for me. Pfly (talk) 11:16, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I grew up in the same area as the Barenaked Ladies, so, to add to the previous answers, while it sounds perfectly normal to me if "llama" (and "drama" etc) does not rhyme with "mama", in this particular case, it can, I guess because it's a foreign word. Personally, my first thought for the pronunciation of "llama" is the Monty Python sketch, where I also learned that llamas have two ears, a heart, a forehead, a beak for eating honey, and is provided with fins for swimming. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

¡Cuidado! ¡Cuidado! ¡Cuidado! ¡Cuidado! ¡Hay llamas!

I am occasionally inspired to sing: Las llamas / son mas grandes / que las ra-a-a-naas. —Tamfang (talk) 07:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I think this whole thread is the perfect answer to the whining about reforming the spelling. :-) -- Elphion (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct. A spelling 'reform' for English would have the same effect as a romanization of Chinese--millions of people would, in effect, have to learn a new language. μηδείς (talk) 04:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)