R.I.P. I.P.A.

Excuse me a moment while I step up onto my high horse. Theeerree we go.

I thought coming over to the United Kingdom, home of the BBC and heartland of Received Pronunciation that I would be able to bathe my ears in the dulcet tones of the Queen's English.

Now, I know that Australian English may be far from perfect, but I was completely unprepared for the aural bashing that my poor tympanic membrane would have to endure. I could probably write a list that would stretch all the way to Melbourne but today I will start with just three:

1) The propensity of many a Brit to use the past participle (done) in the place of the past tense(did).

"Who scraped their fingernails down the blackboard?"
-"I done it!"

2) The over abundance of the glottal stop. Honestly, they drink so much t here but they can't seem to put into a bo'le.

3) The banishment of the dental fricative (th) and its replacement with the labiodental fricative (f).

"I like de way your brain finks?"

Still, there is some elegance in the substitution, since the voiced dental fricative (th) is likwise replaced with the voiced labiodental fricative (v), at least in the middle of words (initially, the voiced alveolar stop seems to suffice).

"Dat is your bruva, innit?"

Oh, the pain. Give me an H.R.T. any day.

On an even sadder note. While I was hunting down a link to Peter Ladefoged's excellent phonetics resources I discovered that, in January this year Peter passed away. His death certainly leaves a hole in the field he left his indelible mark on. The photo above shows Peter on the set of My Fair Lady, where he worked as a consultant (it is Peter's voice you hear on the vowel cylinders Eliza has to replicate). Do take a moment to read through his achievements.


Tags: London, phonetics, linguistics