During the decade of the 1640s, England was divided by Civil War. At the same time, the sound of letter of U was also experiencing its own division, ultimately resulting in two distinct ‘long’ sounds and two distinct ‘short’ sounds. In this episode, we explore those developments and examine how the English Civil War shaped the English language.
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Thanks kevin—enjoyed this episode and continue to eagerly listen to your amazing podcast
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
As someone who grew up in East TN, we always said “a University” or “a universal joint,” etc. But used “an” when saying an upside-down cake, an unclear advantage, etc. Is this common? Is “a” used in some cases and “an” in others?
Keep up the good work.
The second set of words you listed (upside-down, unclear) have the ‘short U’ sound that I described at the end of the episode. We use “an” for the ‘short U’ sound because it is a pure vowel. We also use “an” for the traditional ‘long U’ (pronounced ‘oo’) as in “an Uber.” We only use “a” for the newer ‘long U’ that I described at the beginning of the episode (“a union,” “a university,” etc.) because that’s the only version that has the ‘y glide’ at the front.
Which indefinite article do you use with unionized? The answer will be different depending on whether you are a labor leader or a chemist.
Curious.
So, do we pronounce it [jʉ] just to match the French [y]? Did French have the [y] sound at that time?
Yes, it did. The sound appeared in Early Old French that lasted from the 9th to the 10th century included (Cf. Phonological history of French -Wikipedia.
Hi Kevin! The u in up in northern English dialects is not a schwa. It is sometimes when it’s elided, but the word cup for example does not have a schwa sound.
What source are you using that says it is?
What you are describing is the opposite of what I said in the podcast. As I noted in the last part of the episode, the traditional short ’rounded’ sound of letter U is still used in the north of England, whereas the newer ‘unrounded’ sound (similar or identical to schwa, depending on your accent) is used in the south of England.