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ArchivesKari pronunciation?
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I'm not trying to argue with you, but I have known Brits and Aussies to do that very thing--write AH for "a" as in "cat" and AR for "a" as in "father." My only point (as this relates to the original post, on the pronunciation of Kari) is that it's very difficult to use standard alphabet symbols, or even words that supposedly rhyme, to express vowel sounds in any way that will be self-evident to speakers of various English dialects. To use your own examples, in my dialect the "a" of "father" is by no means the "a" of "past," nor is it the same as in "cart," so using AH to represent all three of those sounds would be essentially meaningless.
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Australian English is a non-rhotic dialect, so 'AH' and 'AR' are indistinguishable. It doesn't surprise me that people do write it incorrectly though. I've found that understandings of phonics are absolutely dire even amongst teachers apparently trained to teach it, so people with no experience of/with phonics must really struggle.
If we're talking IPA, cat is kæt, æ being a very short sound not found in a lot of American dialects.
Kari, father, past and cart all contain ä (also written as aː).
If we're talking IPA, cat is kæt, æ being a very short sound not found in a lot of American dialects.
Kari, father, past and cart all contain ä (also written as aː).
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Ha..perhaps I should have said that in my dialect, Kari sounds like Kerry. It also sounds like Carrie. They're all the same, with an AIR- sound. "A as in cat" does not exist before R in my dialect.
This is a good example of why it's so tricky to even discuss pronunciation without recourse to the IPA.
This is a good example of why it's so tricky to even discuss pronunciation without recourse to the IPA.
This message was edited 5/6/2012, 1:44 PM
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