Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 May 12

Language desk
< May 11	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 13 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 12

Questions again

1. Are there any words in English where letter C is pronounced /s/ at the end of word?
2. Are there any words in English where word-final ⟨ge⟩ is pronounced /g/ at the end of word?
3. Are there any words in English where word final -gue and -que are pronounced as /gjuː/ and /kjuː/ respectively?
4. Are there any words in English where letter U is pronounced as /ʊ/ in the beginning of word?
5. Are there any dialects of English that pronounce letter R as an alveolar flap /ɾ/?
6. Are there any dialects of English that are syllable-timed, and do not have vowel reduction?

--40bus (talk) 18:20, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

5. Scottish English. GalacticShoe (talk) 18:47, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Also Hiberno-English. Must be some Celtic effect. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:50, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

3a. ague, argue, and also the name Montague. GalacticShoe (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Some francophone students once reported to me, laughing, that their ESL teacher had said “Don't arg with me!” —Tamfang (talk) 19:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

3b. It's a rare/alternative form, but que itself is a word pronounced /ˈkjuː/. Edit: I'm realizing now that I failed to notice that one of its meaning is as a clipping of barbeque, which while still an alternative form, is a more common word. GalacticShoe (talk) 18:52, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

As for 4, I couldn't find any when I was making File:Initial_Teaching_Alphabet_ITA_chart.svg... AnonMoos (talk) 20:12, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

As for 6, I believe that certain pronunciations used by some people in India approach this, but you might not want to call them "dialects", and native speakers of quasi-standard English might have difficulty understanding them... AnonMoos (talk) 20:12, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Item 4 - assuming that's pronounced like the "oo" in book, cook, hook, look, nook, rook, took, etc., one thing that comes to mind is one pronunciation of "Uff da". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

As for question (2)

I don't believe there are any. Words that make and /eɪ/ is expressed in words ending with a g sound as an "AI." The closest thing I could find is "Mikage" It technically ends with a "Gey" sound but I could see some mispronunciation arising with English speakers. MallardTV (talk) 19:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Rather -geh, I'd say, but okay. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:08, 23 May 2024 (UTC)