Sammy (friend of foxes)Feb 21, 2023

Very smart #linguistics folx, your attention please 🙏

Given the #IPA həˈləʊ, is there or is there not only "one way" of that being pronounced?
If so, by extension, correct in assuming the phoneme ə can again only be "pronounced" one way?

Why then does the ə on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/General_phonetics#Vowels not sound like the ə in the word hello (represented as həˈləʊ)???

General phonetics - Wikimedia Commons

Show thread9th level spell slut
@theresnotime only a dabbler, but "hello" has two pronunciations common in English use: that one, and /hɛˈləʊ/ (which is what I assume yours is)
Feb 21, 2023 at 7:46pmWeb
Show threadNikkiFeb 21, 2023
@hierarchon @theresnotime that's what I was thinking too. the schwa in the audio file is also a lot longer than would normally be used in an English word
Show threadSammy (friend of foxes)Feb 21, 2023
@hierarchon okay but /hɛˈləʊ/ then should, per the Laws Of IPA (/s) should the same in any language right? IPA is language agnostic right..?
Show thread9th level spell slutFeb 21, 2023
@theresnotime same-ish, yeah. there's something about phonemes and phones that I don't fully get
Show threadvy-letFeb 21, 2023
@hierarchon @theresnotime one thing I frequently trip myself up on is using pronunciation keys that compare the symbols to parts of certain words, but the authors of those keys almost invariably choose examples that are ambiguous between dialects and regions (sigh), so they can seem contradictory or flexible when they’re not meant to be
Show threadOwen BlackerFeb 21, 2023

@hierarchon @theresnotime The short version is that we use some symbols nonspecifically when the difference between accents is unimportant.

So /e/ in English might actually be /ɛ/, for example, but English doesn't really differentiate between the two sounds. Similarly we don't bother writing the difference between the /pʰ/ and the /p/ in "pepper", because that difference isn't phonemically important, whereas that matters in, say, Hindi (फ and प, respectively)

Show threadOwen BlackerFeb 21, 2023
@hierarchon @theresnotime (I didn't scroll far enough to see the other, much better answers. Sorry about that.)