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Are you aware of the Canadian Vowel Shift? This is what I refer to.
Yes I'm familiar with it, but I'm not sure how it applies here. Saying MILK or MELK and hearing MELK or MILK is more than a vowel shift IMO but a different way of saying the word.
A vowel shift to me is the classic one where a Canadian say " out " and an American hears " oot " when that is not what was actually said.
Yes I'm familiar with it, but I'm not sure how it applies here. Saying MILK or MELK and hearing MELK or MILK is more than a vowel shift IMO but a different way of saying the word.
A vowel shift to me is the classic one where a Canadian say " out " and an American hears " oot " when that is not what was actually said.
Make sense?
Sure but from what I understand, the shift undergone in the Pacific Coast that seems to go from California to Vancouver seems to shift short I to short E as is heard in General American. That is what I mean. In other words, it seems the Canadian short I is equivalent to a General American short E. Maybe that's why "melk" is heard.
Here let me give you an example. The way someone in Pittsburgh says "caught" or "cot" would sound like the word "cut" to someone in Chicago. But the Pittsburgh person would say "I would never say caught like cut as they are two different words!" because the vowel sound they use for cut is distinct than the vowel sound used in Chicago. Make sense?
Sure but from what I understand, the shift undergone in the Pacific Coast that seems to go from California to Vancouver seems to shift short I to short E as is heard in General American. That is what I mean. In other words, it seems the Canadian short I is equivalent to a General American short E. Maybe that's why "melk" is heard.
Here let me give you an example. The way someone in Pittsburgh says "caught" or "cot" would sound like the word "cut" to someone in Chicago. But the Pittsburgh person would say "I would never say caught like cut as they are two different words!" because the vowel sound they use for cut is distinct than the vowel sound used in Chicago. Make sense?
I understand what you are saying, but what I am saying is that isn't the case here in Vancouver. I am willing to suggest though, that perhaps it's generational? I'll have to ask some younger people to say the word and see.
However, no one in my circle of friends, family or people I interact with often, says it other that MILK rhyming with SILK.
If you say silk rhymes with milk, but your vowel for silk rhymes with the vowel others would hear as "selk", then you do in essence say melk to someone else's ears. This poll would have been better if IPA was used because IMO a lot of Left Coast people say it such a way and are very unaware since most of them talk that way.
To them, melk would sound like malk to everyone else. That's the weird thing about vowel shifts. They're undetectable to the speaker and change perception of sound.
Fun little fact though: the California and Canadian Vowel Shifts (especially Canadian) have a very Ulster like quality. The way they and the Ulster Irish say a word like "Belfast" sound very alike.
Milk rhymes with silk. Grew up in WI - last 21 years in South Florida.
Have heard the melk version.. but can't remember where whoever said it like that was from.
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