Timeline for How is “X” pronounced in English?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
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| Jan 30, 2017 at 18:06 | vote | accept | Maurocrispin | ||
| Oct 26, 2016 at 12:41 | history | edited | Araucaria - Not here any more. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 31, 2016 at 1:08 | history | edited | Araucaria - Not here any more. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 21, 2016 at 23:10 | comment | added | Giambattista | @Araucaria Fair enough. I was strictly speaking of AmE; I tend to forget that American pronunciations are no more correct than those of any other dialect. It's still a great answer; I was nit-picking because it was so perfect. That was a lot of work on your part. | |
| Jul 21, 2016 at 17:33 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | @Giambattista I don't have any /ɪ/ in those words either, I've got schwa or /e/ all the way through. I took the IPA from Cambridge Advanced so as to not impose the vagueries of my own idiolect ;) I think I was thinking about names and cities, so X in the English rendition of Chinese cities etc usually represents /ʃ/ and so on. But I think your'e right about standard lexical words - will have an edit a bit later to add your point in and take mine out. (There's also /xi/ which is often pronounced with /ks/ too) | |
| Jul 21, 2016 at 17:00 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | @choster Thanks for that info. There's quite a few where the stress is on ex where both are possible, I seem to remember (hence the strategic 'As a rule of thumb' inserted at the beginning there!). Exile, and *exit both sound ok to my BE ear with /gz/. I didn't know about Brexit at all though. That does sound weird to me! How did I miss that LL post, I wonder ... | |
| Jul 21, 2016 at 16:51 | comment | added | choster | +1, but I pronounce exit and exile with an /ɛɡz-/ , which is not uncommon in American Englishes. LL observes Brexit pronounced differently in news reports from opposite sides of the pond. | |
| Jul 21, 2016 at 4:34 | comment | added | Giambattista | +1 This is a solid and comprehensive answer. To add to it, I'd say that as far as I know, almost all words beginning with 'x' are borrowed from Greek and that they're always pronounced as /z/. I can't think of a single word that doesn't follow this pattern, so I'd call it quite predictable. I disagree with some of your IPA spellings, but that's just splitting hairs. In my dialect, they all begin with /e/ rather than the short 'i' /ɪ/. | |
| Jul 21, 2016 at 2:44 | comment | added | Schwale | Won't do it. I can't imagine who did this when it's pure useful info. | |
| Jul 20, 2016 at 15:37 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | To the anonymous downvoter, care to explain the downvote? | |
| Jul 20, 2016 at 12:57 | history | edited | Araucaria - Not here any more. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 20, 2016 at 12:41 | history | edited | Araucaria - Not here any more. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 20, 2016 at 12:35 | history | answered | Araucaria - Not here any more. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |