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Despite being a native Brit, I've always found it an oddity that words like "tutor", "tube", "tumour", and "duty" are pronounced as "tyutor", "tyube", "tyumour", and "duty" in British English. For me, this doesn't seem phonologically simpler/easier at all, and given that it seems to be absent in American English (possibly other forms of English too?) for these sorts of words (beginning with "tu" or "du"), I would suppose it's a somewhat recent innovation in historical linguistic terems, almost surely after the Middle English period. So that's my first question: when and where did this pronunciation originate, and as a bonus, why?

Now, there are certain words that have this "y" sound inserted even in American and other forms of English, though I can't think of any where it's inserted in the "tu" or "du" sound. e.g. "beautiful", "cute", "futile". Notably, this pronunciation seems much more natural to me in these cases, unlike in the "tu" and "du" cases. Of course, the pronunciation of these words in the original Latin (or even the intermediary French when applicable) suggests that this innovation happened within English, and most likely within England itself. (N.B. I can't think of any Anglo-Saxon words with this mode of pronunciation right now, but quite possibly there are some too.) So, my second question is: is there some clear linguistic/phonological reason why the insertion of the 'y' sound is more natural in the non-"tu"/"du" cases, and did this phenomenon originate earlier in the English language?

tchrist
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Noldorin
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1 Answers1

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Wikipedia has what seems to me to be a very complete write-up on the pronunciation of words like "tutor," "news," "brew," that are not pronounced with a "y" sound for many speakers, even though the spelling and history would suggest that pronunciation. This phenomenon is named "yod-dropping," as "yod" is one name for the "y" sound. In general, it is possible to predict which words are affected, although the rules are fairly complex and there are some areas where there is variation even among speakers of the same regional variety. For this reason, I won't try to list them all here and risk giving a simplified, wrong picture–you can find them over at Wikipedia, or if you look at phonologists' work on describing "yod-dropping."

So to answer your first question: the pronunciation with "y" is the original one, and has the same origins as it does in words like "feud" or "fume" where both British and American English speakers standardly have a "yoo" sound. The pronunciation without "y" is newer, but I've had a hard time finding actual dates given that correspond to the timeline of this change. It appears that yod-dropping occurred earlier or later depending on the particular phonetic environment, and the change is still in-progress.

Regarding the second part of your question: the consonant "y" is pronounced towards the front of the mouth. For many American-English speakers, there is a tendency for the ordinary "oo" sound to be pronounced more towards the front of the mouth after coronal consonants, a class that includes /t, d, n, s, z, l/ among others (Source: The Atlas of North American English, Sound Changes in Progress, the fronting of /uw/ after coronals). It seems possible to me that this tendency first led to confusion between "yoo" and "oo" after these sounds (for example, in the pair of words "do" and "dew"), and then led to what phonologists call neutralization: a complete lack of contrast.

herisson
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  • Interesting. This is certainly an answer to part of my question, so thanks for that. I'd still be interested in when and where yod-dropping occurred. Also, perhaps even more so, when the yod sound was introduced in words like the ones I listed, since it seems to only apply to Romance-borrowed words, which in their original languages did not of course have that sound. – Noldorin Oct 03 '15 at 00:08
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    That should be addressed by the answer and Peter Shor's comment here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/229476/how-did-some-english-words-get-a-y-sound-in-front-of-u%CB%90-sounding-vowels Basically, French does not have plain /u/ in these words, and didn't at the time they were introduced to English: French has a sound like German "ü" (transcribed in IPA as /y/; the sound of English "y" in IPA is /j/). The IPA /y/ sound is similar to both /i/ and /u/, and developed in English to /ju/. – herisson Oct 03 '15 at 00:31
  • Hmm. The "ü" just sounds like a long "u" sound to me. Anyway, the original Latin was certainly just a long "u" sound. – Noldorin Oct 03 '15 at 00:38
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    @Noldorin: that's because (1) that sound doesn't exist in standard British English and (2) some dialects of British English have started using "ü" (IPA /y/) to pronounce the long u (IPA /u/) sound. – Peter Shor Nov 01 '15 at 10:50
  • @PeterShor, Yeah. I find it odd that it doesn't exist though, since the "tu" sound exists in every other European language I'm aware of, and the "tyu" sound doesn't exist in them. That's interesting some dialects of English have started using the /y/ sound though – which dialects, may I ask? (I'm still struggling to note the difference between /y/ and long /u/, mind you.) – Noldorin Nov 01 '15 at 14:25
  • Try this blog entry. Although it seems to say that the /uː/ vowel doesn't go all the way to /yː/, just part of the way. – Peter Shor Nov 01 '15 at 14:52
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    @Noldorin: the "tu" sound doesn't exist in most Romance languages, like Spanish or Italian. I think the only reason it exists in French is the influence of the Germanic-speaking Franks. – Peter Shor Nov 01 '15 at 15:46
  • @PeterShor: Not true! I speak Spanish, and it most certainly exists there. It exists in Italian too, I'm sure. – Noldorin Nov 01 '15 at 15:47
  • @PeterShor: Thanks for the link to the blog post. I certainly accept there is difference in degree between the two sounds, but it's fundamentally the same sound as far as I can tell. Very odd that they have two different IPA letters. – Noldorin Nov 01 '15 at 15:51
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    @Noldorin: French has lots of words which are distinguished just by the two sounds: tu and tout, rue and roux, and lots more. So they can easily tell them apart. (But they have trouble with /s/ and /th/.) Our ears haven't learned this difference because we speak English. – Peter Shor Nov 01 '15 at 15:53
  • That's a fair point. I'm still sceptical they're different sounds (rather than different degrees), but perhaps I could find an audio example somewhere online... – Noldorin Nov 01 '15 at 15:55
  • @Noldorin No, Spanish does not have a /y/ vowel at all. Almost no Romance language outside of France does. French tu is pronounced /ty/, and this is very unlike Spanish tú, tu which are both pronounced /tu/ — just as tu is pronounced in Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, and Romanian. None of those languages have an /y/ vowel, although educated Romanian speakers may use it in loanwords from French or German that originally had it. However, others also pronounce /y/ as /ju/ in those words. – tchrist Aug 04 '18 at 03:00
  • @tchrist: I think /y/ is also present in a number of dialects of northern Italy – herisson Aug 04 '18 at 03:18
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    @sumelic Well sure: Occitan has it, unlike its close cousin Catalan, and there are Occitan speakers in Italy. But I was hedging my words a little when I said "outside France" because I knew some Occitan dialects are spoken outside France's borders as well. I'm no expert on the details of the many “little languages” in that particular region, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were others there in the contact zone that also had /y/. Some in the Rhaeto-Romance group also have it due to German contact, but I don’t know if those spill over from the Swiss cantons into Italy. – tchrist Aug 04 '18 at 03:30
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    @tchrist Yeah, I didn’t understand IPA at the time I was last here. Spanish definitely used a back u vowel. – Noldorin Aug 04 '18 at 12:21
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    Words which had an /u/ sound in Old English (like hus and cu meaning house and cow) mostly ended up with an /aʊ/ sound in Modern English. The yods did not develop through simple "yod-insertion". – Peter Shor Sep 28 '19 at 21:23
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    Here is a trick for pronouncing something like /y/: Purse your lips like you are about to say /u/ (as in "loot" for me). Now, without changing your lips, say /i/ (the vowel in "eel" for me). Your lips will be rounded like /u/ and your tongue will be in the shape for /i/. The result will be something between them if it is not too muffled. – user173897 May 12 '20 at 21:37