Re: My version

--- On Fri, 2/20/09, Brian M. Scott <BMScott@...> wrote:

> From: Brian M. Scott <BMScott@...>
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: My version
> To: "Francesco Brighenti" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Friday, February 20, 2009, 8:28 PM
> At 7:43:34 PM on Friday, February 20, 2009, Francesco
> Brighenti wrote:
>
> > I realize that my views on what 'true'
> dialects have
> > represented throughout the medieval (and part of
> modern)
> > history of Europe cannot be applied to what some of
> the
> > members of the List want to call 'American
> dialects'. By
> > now, it should be clear to anyone that to me those are
> not
> > 'dialects' at all, but rather 'accent
> varieties'.
>
> It isn't just phonology, you know. To quote Raven I.
> McDavid, Jr., in 'Dialect Differences and Social
> Differences
> in an Urban Society':
>
> A dialect, in the sense in which American scholars use
> it,
> is simply an habitual variety of a language, set off from
> other such varieties by a complex of features of
> pronunciation (/drin/ vs. /dren/ "drain"),
> grammar
> (_I_dove_ vs. _I_dived_) or vocabulary (_doughnut_ vs.
> _fried_cake_).
>

. . .
not to mention Midwestern /ruwt/, /rut/, /raut/ -- route, root
I've always pronounced both as /ruwt/ (rhymes with boot) but for many in the Midwest, root & roof have the same vowel as book, and route is pronounced like rout (rhyming with out).
That's an odd set