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I've seen that words like "day" sound like "die", "pray" sounds like "pry" and so on. I just googled where does day sound like die but didn't get anything.

So, are day and die homephones in some variety of English, and if so in what country?

I talked to an Irish guy cause I thought it was Irish but apparently not. He didn't think so.

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  • 'pray' and 'praise' ^^ Feb 7, 2019 at 6:14
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    As an outsider, I think that Australians (stereotypical ones like Paul Hogan, anyway) pronounce "day" and "die" very similarly, but I'm not sure if they're true homophones.
    – The Photon
    Feb 7, 2019 at 6:17
  • Luckily, Indians have no such problem. For most of us, 'day' is 'de' as in 'debt.' :)
    – Maulik V
    Feb 7, 2019 at 7:18
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    I suspect that there are pairs of dialects where one pronounces day as the other does die, but not sure I can think of any where one dialect pronounces both the same.
    – SamBC
    Feb 7, 2019 at 20:47

1 Answer 1

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This is a feature of some Australian accents.

Australian accents can be loosely grouped into three types "cultivated" (which is close to British) "general" (used by the majority of Australians) and "broad" (used by, for example, Paul Hogan, and considered to be a marker of social class)

In the broad accent the "ei" diphthong (in day) can be articulated as [ɐ̟ːɪ] or [a̠ːɪ], whereas the "ai" diphthong (in die) is [ɒːɪ̞]. These are similar, especially if you are used to the "cultivated" accent in which the "ai" is [a̠ɪ̞].

The articulation of "ei" and "ai" in some British accents is also similar, but as in Australia, it is seen as a marker of social class, and sometimes considered to be a bad pronunciation.

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