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b'Goodness! It\'s our lucky thirteenth episode, and Phil and Eric tackle the /\\u028a/ vowel and the lexical set foot. We talk about symbols used to represent it in phonetic notation, spellings of the sound, the history of the sound, splits and mergers in various accents of English, and interesting "goodies" about the sound represented by upsilon .

Show Notes:

Description
\\u201cshort oo\\u201d
near-close near-back rounded vowel

Formation
Do it like this: [slide between /u/ and schwa?] Handbook of the IPA defines this as a \'mid-centralization of /u/\'.

Phonetic Symbol
Turned omega \\u028a [wiki: "horseshoe u"]
closed omega \\u0277 was voted off the island in1989 called
\\u201cIn Americanist phonetic notation, the symbol [\\u1d1c] (a small capital U) is used\\u201d --- -Wikipedia
After Jones: /u/ /u:/ Phil feel that this confuses quality and quantity but it has continued as the practice in the UK for a long time

[Therefore: /\\u028a/ is not a Cardinal Vowel]

\\u2022 Vowel Reduction of /u/, especially /ju/ as in stimulus vs. stimulate

Occurrence (from Wikipedia)

In the following transcriptions, an unrounded vowel is represented by the "less-rounded" diacritic [\\u028a\\u031c]:

Language\\tWord\\tIPA\\tMeaning\\tNotes
Arabic\\t\\u0643\\u062a\\u0628\\t[\\u02c8k\\u028at\\u028ab]\\t\'books\'\\tSee Arabic phonology
Chinese\\tCantonese\\t\\u7d05\\t[h\\u028a\\u031c\\u014b]\\t\'red\'\\tSee Cantonese phonology
Mandarin\\t\\u7d05\\t[x\\u028a\\u031c\\u014b\\u02e7\\u02e5]\\t\'red\'\\tMay be only slightly rounded. See Mandarin phonology
English\\thook\\t[h\\u028ak]\\t\'hook\'\\tMay be only slightly rounded. See English phonology
Faroese\\thvalur\\t[kv\\u025bal\\u028a\\u0279]\\t\'whale\'\\t
French\\tQuebec\\tfoule\\t[f\\u028al]\\t\'crowd\'\\tSee French phonology
German\\tSchutz\\t[\\u0283\\u028ats]\\t\'protection\'\\tSee German phonology
Mongolian[1]\\t\\u04e9\\u043b\\u0433\\u0438\\u0439\\t[\\u028a\\u026e\\u0263i\\u02d0]\\t\'cradle\'\\t
Portuguese\\tEuropean[2]\\tpegar\\t[p\\u028a\\u031c\\u02c8\\u0261a\\u027e]\\t\'to hold\'\\tUnstressed vowel. See Portuguese phonology
Brazilian[3]\\tsaco\\t[\\u02c8sak\\u028a]\\t\'bag\'
Russian[4]\\t\\u0441\\u0443\\u0445\\u043e\\u0439\\t[s\\u028a\\u02c8xo\\u031ej]\\t\'dry\'\\tUnstressed allophone of /u/. See Russian phonology
Swedish\\tort\\t

[\\u028a\\u0288] (help\\xb7info)\\t\'(geographic) place\'\\tExolabial (compressed). See Swedish phonology
Vietnamese\\tthu\\t[t\\u02b0\\u028aw]\\t\'autumn\'\\tSee Vietnamese phonology


History of English Spelling and Development of pronunciation
foot O.E. fot c.1300
put O.E. putung c.1300
puss O.E. 1530
bush O.E. bysc
full O.E. full
pudding O.E. puduc c.1300
bull O.E. bula
good O.E. god
stood O.E. stod c.1300
wood O.E. wudu
hood O.E. hod
hook O.E. hoc
hoof O.E. hof
cook O.E. coc
nook noke c.1300
rook O.E. hroc (crow)
look O.E. locian
wool O.E. wull
wolf O.E. wulf
roof O.E. hrof
soot O.E. sot
bosom O.E. bosm
could O.E. cu\\xf0e pt. of cunnan
should O.E. sceolde c.1200
would O.E. wolde
shook O.E. sceacan (scoc)
push O.Fr. poulser c.1300
cuckoo O.Fr. cucu c.1240
butcher O.Fr boucher c.1300
cushion O.Fr. coissin c.1300
rook O.Fr. roc c.1300 (chess piece)
sugar O.Fr. sucre c.1289
bullet M.Fr. boulette 1550s
woman late O.E wifman
root late O.E. rot
jook Gullah joog 1937 (wicked, disorderly)
took late O.E. toc
Buddha Pali budh 1680s related to Skt. bodhati
Muslim Arabic muslim 1615

Jack Windsor Lewis:
\\u2022This is usually spelt u or oo but corresponds to the spelling o only in bosom, wolf, woman and worsted. Cf courier / `k\\u028ari\\u0259/ and the place name Worcester. The suffix -ful has this vowel in nouns eg boxful, mouthful, spoonful but not in adjectives eg useful, beautiful, hopeful which instead have either /\\u0259/ or more usually no vowel.

\\t\\u2022\\tElisions due to speeded articulation from increased familiarity: actually/-\\u02a7\\u028a\\u0259li\\u2192-\\u02a7\\u0259li/ , manufacture /-nj\\u028af\\u2192n\\u0259f-/ , particularly /-kj\\u028al\\u0259li\\u2192/-kj\\u0259li//, usually /`ju\\u02d0\\u0292\\u028a\\u0259li\\u2192/`ju\\u02d0\\u0292li/

\\u2022 The beginning of /\\u028a\\u025a/ & the end of /a\\u028a/ /o\\u028a/ diphthongs

Mergers and Splits
foot/strut Historic split. Some areas don\\u2019t do this split

foot/goose Scottish merger (realization may be fronter)

foot/nurse Not really a merger, but in many US accents midcentralization and unrounding bring the two closer.


\\u201ccook\\u201d /u/ in Ireland and North England - According to Wells

Post vocalic /l/ can \\u201creverse\\u201d the foot/strut merger, making \\u201cculture\\u201d into [k\\u028al\\u02a7\\u025a]

Sultan \\u2013 vulnerable \\u2013 culture \\u2013 culture \\u2013 multi -

Ashton Kutcher: /u/ or /\\u028a/?

Some plurals reverse the vowel shift, moving from /\\u028a/ to /u/

hoof/hooves roof/rooves?
\\u201cjukebox \\u201cThis is a newishword which reversed the shift/\\u028a/ to /u/

oops whoops zhoozh
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