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Re: Tahnie, Tahnee
There are many people in the United States, especially in California and other western states, who have what is called the "ah/aw" merger and who have lost the distinction between "ah" and "aw". So your above comment that you say Tahnee like tah-nee and Tawny like taw-nee will make no sense to them because they say ah and aw exactly the same. What they say in these words usually sounds more like "ah" than "aw" to those Americans like myself who still make a distinction between the two sounds. There are many people in the USA now who pronounce the pairs Don/Dawn, cot/caught, clod/Claude, etc. identically.

This message was edited 9/4/2023, 1:15 PM

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Thank you! But I think it originated in Australia and there they shouldn't sound the same, as far as I know. I have never met a Tahnee from the US.
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You’re correct, they’re completely different sounds in Australia.
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