Pronunciation of indefinite article “a”

In my experience (British English), it's usually pronounced "uh", the sound known as the shwa (/ə/). But it is sometimes pronounced "aye" (/eɪ/) when stressed. For example
"Can I have 'uh' biscuit?" (/ə/) - I'm given two biscuits - "But I asked for 'aye' biscuit, not two." (/eɪ/).

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives (/ə/) as standard and (/eɪ/) as a strong form in British English, but both (/ə/) and (/eɪ/) as standard in North American English.

http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dic...

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I'd hazard the opinion --as a USAmerican-- that the lovely shwa is more common in (at least) the NE, MidAtlantic and some parts of the Southern US and that "aye" is really only used when referring to a particular object, or for especial emphasis, e.g. speaking to my mostly deaf father.

At least, reading that last sentence in the post, I can think of only 1 or 2 people in my acquaintance that would use "aye" as opposed to "uh".

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Warsaw Will, thanks for your reply...very enlightening, and I do agree somewhat. Although it's definitely common usage in Australia, to the extent that the strong A often replaces "an" before a vowel, eg. "A elephant"

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Count me in with the "/ay/ for emphasis only" crowd: "That's A book, but it's not THE book we're supposed to read." If I heard someone saying "I saw /ay/ student reading /ay/ book" without emphasizing the articles, I'd assume that he was either a foreigner or an eccentric.

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@Ingebiorg Nordén - And the interesting thing with your example is that the same thing would happen with "the", which would change from the shwa sound / ðə / (thuh) to stressed /ðɪ :/ (thee), the same sound as we often also use before vowels.

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Would anyone care to explain the (apparently American) preference for the "aye" sound in Adolf, arab, and gala and the use of the "eye" sound in semi, anti, simultaneous?

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@HairyScot - As an American, I must comment that while Adolf can have the long or the short A sound, I have never heard any educated American pronounce any of the A's in Arab or gala with any but the short (as in "apple") A sound.

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What about the long 'o' in the first syllable of Kosovo, which seems to me to be standard in American English (we give it a short 'o'). But the same thing happens with us; most British newsreaders gave Sarkosy a stressed long "o" that it certainly doesn't have in French. And why can both the English and Americans pronounce the /x/ sound in Rioja, but not in loch? It's all a mystery.

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@JimJ123

Have a look here :-
http://painintheenglish.com/case/4913

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@Warsaw Will
Another mystery which is perhaps only of interest to Scots is the pronunciation of names like McKay and Menzies (although the latter is probably excusable).
I would also dearly love to know the history behind the following:-
zed vs zee
the American pronunciation of buoy
the American emphasis on the "wrong" syllable in defence and offence

There are others but that should do for now.

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I can venture a guess about defense and offense. The accent on the first syllable is typically reserved for sports references and often when "defense" is referring to the actual collection of players. I'm not much of a sports fan, but I have heard "DE'-FENSE', DE'-FENSE', DE'-FENSE'..." chanted at games. It just wouldn't be sonorous for a crowd of fans to chant "de-FENSE', de-FENSE', de-FENSE'...", would it?

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@porsche
Yes, I can relate to the chants from the crowd or the players.
Just sounds strange coming from the commentators.

My bridge partner and I have been known to quietly chant "dee fence dee fence" after cracking a redoubled contract. :-))

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@Hairy Scot - Menzies - I'm of the old school here, and pronounce it 'Ming-is’. I was very disappointed when the eponymous newsagents starting using the /z/ sound in their ads.

For those interested, there was a sound in Scots, akin to -ng or /ŋ/ which was seemingly rendered in manuscripts by a 27th letter called yogh. Later on, when printing came in, this letter wasn't available, so Scottish printers used the letter z instead, z not being used much in Scots.

(For non Scots) Here are a few Scottish examples where the z is silent:

Culzean Castle - pronounced Cul-ain
Dalrulzean, near Blairgowrie - Dal-rulion
Dalziel, traditionally pronounced Dee-el, although a lot of people with this as a family name pronounce the z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/459...

As for the zed vs zee thing, zee seems to have started off as an English dialectical form in the 17th century, along with such other fanciful names as 'izzard', both of which were taken to America by early settlers (along with zed). It was apparently Webster who swung it for zee in his 1827 dictionary.

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?dat...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z

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@Warsaw Will
At least we agree on some things. :-))
I too am of the old school (surprise surprise) wrt the pronunciation of the names you mention. Menzies, Dalziel, and Milngavie are old favourites of mine.

I included McKay because I am currently watching some episodes of Stargate Atlantis which has a resident geek of that name. Between him, discussions about some device called a ZPM, and lots of use of simultaneous, my gringe reflex gets lots of exercise.

Luckily there is little mention of 'erbs and spices.

:-))

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A bit more on pronunciation:

Edinburgh J - Many, perhaps most, people in Edinburgh pronounce the letter J to rhyme with the letter I, rather than the letter K. I wonder if this happens anywhere else.

aitch / haitch - I distinctly heard Charlotte Church (Welsh) say haitch on HIGNFY the other day. This is traditional in Cockney, but seems to be spreading. Its use in Cockney is not so surprising, as in traditional Cockneys, not only were Hs dropped, they were also sometimes added where they don't usually appear, as in - "This 'ere hedge of the table". Again. does this happen in other Englishes?

ate - I pronounce this to rhyme with bet, but a lot of British people now pronounce it to rhyme with late - it could be a generational thing

says - something similar seems to be happening here, with sez /sez/ increasingly changing to a pronunciation more like the spelling /seɪz/ (according to the BBC)

There's more about this at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11642588

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@WW

You could add "Breakfast/brekfast" to that list.

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@HS - do you mean some people pronounce the first syllable as in "break"? I've never heard that.

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I think that regional dialect can be a factor.

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